G20 economies have generally demonstrated restraint in the imposition of new trade-restrictive measures related to the pandemic and are supporting the recovery by continuing to roll back restrictions adopted earlier in the crisis.
That’s the finding of a World Trade Organization report that covers the period from mid-May to mid-October. However, despite the relatively low number of Covid-19 trade restrictions still in place, their estimated trade coverage was almost double (US$ 88.4 billion) that of trade-facilitating measures (US$ 48.2 billion).
Since the outbreak of the pandemic, 144 Covid-19 trade and trade-related measures in goods have been implemented by G20 economies. Of these, 105 (73%) were of a trade-facilitating nature and 39 (27%) could be considered trade restrictive. Export restrictions accounted for 95% of all restrictive measures recorded, and of these, 54% had been phased out by mid-October. A total of 18 restrictions remained in place, of which 17 are export restrictions. Around 20% of the trade-facilitating measures have been rolled back — 85 of those are still in place.
During the review period, a limited number of new Covid-19 trade and trade-related measures were recorded for G20 economies on goods, mainly consisting of extensions or terminations of measures originally implemented early in the pandemic. Similarly, the flow of new Covid-related support measures by G20 economies to mitigate the social and economic impacts of the pandemic has decreased over the past five months.
Many of the programmes implemented have been phased out or adjusted to take into account new circumstances and to prepare for the post-pandemic recovery. Services sectors were heavily impacted by the pandemic, and 65 of the 73 reported Covid-19-related measures affecting trade in services put in place by G20 economies in response to the pandemic are still in force.
Regarding non-Covid-19-related trade measures, 25 new trade-facilitating and 14 trade-restrictive measures on goods were recorded for G20 economies. The monthly averages of both trade-facilitating and trade-restrictive measures are among the lowest since 2012. The trade coverage of the import-facilitating measures introduced during the review period was estimated at US$ 36 billion and that of import-restrictive measures stood at US$ 4.2 billion.
Despite the modest number of trade restrictions put in place during this review period, the stockpile of G20 import restrictions has grown steadily since 2009 — both in value terms and as a percentage of world imports. By mid-October, 10.41% of imports by G20 economies were affected by restrictions implemented since 2009 and still in force.
In addition, initiations of trade remedy investigations by G20 economies declined sharply during the review period after peaking in 2020. Trade remedy actions remain an important trade policy tool for G20 economies, accounting for 69% of all non-Covid-19-related trade measures on goods recorded in this report.
The WTO trade monitoring reports have been prepared by the WTO Secretariat since 2009. G20 members are: Argentina; Australia; Brazil; Canada; China; the European Union; France; Germany; India; Indonesia; Italy; Japan; the Republic of Korea; Mexico; the Russian Federation; the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; South Africa; Turkey; the United Kingdom; and the United States.
