There has been a sharp rise in trade-restrictive measures by World Trade Organization members between mid-October 2023 and mid-October 2024 compared to the last Trade Monitoring Report in November 2023.
That’s according to the annual overview of global trade developments released by WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala at a December 11 meeting of the Trade Policy Review Body.
While the report also points to WTO members’ introduction of a substantial number of trade-facilitating measures, there is increasing evidence of inward-looking trade policies which could generate further uncertainty for the world economy, she said.
Okonjo-Iweala highlighted that the value of trade covered by the 169 new trade-restrictive measures introduced by members during the 12 months leading up to mid-October was estimated at $887.7 billion - half a trillion dollars more than the value of trade covered by restrictions introduced in the preceding year, which stood at $337.1bn.
She welcomed a parallel increase in trade-facilitating measures, including tariff reductions, simplified import procedures, and the removal of quantitative restrictions, which covered an estimated $1 440.4bn worth of traded goods during the review period – also up almost half a trillion dollars from the $977.2bn covered by trade-facilitating measures between October 2022 and October 2023.
She also underscored the positive trend in services trade, where the report indicates that the majority of the 134 services-related measures introduced over the past year were trade-facilitating.
Nevertheless, she warned that trade-restricting measures were adding up.
"There is little meaningful roll-back of existing trade restrictions. That means the stockpile of trade restrictions continues to grow.
“As of mid-October, the stockpile of import restrictions in force is an estimated $2 942bn, representing 11.8% of world imports. The comparable figure from a year earlier was $2 480bn, or 9.9% of world imports.
She cautioned that "export restrictions are also gaining momentum." Over the review period, export-restricting measures covered $276.7bn in traded goods, representing 1.1% of the value of world merchandise exports – well above the $159.1bn (or 0.7% of world exports) covered by such measures introduced in the previous reporting period.
Overall, the accumulated stockpile of export restrictions since 2009 is estimated to affect 3.2% of world exports (worth about $786bn).
There is, however, a silver lining.
"Our tracking of export restrictions on food, feed and fertilisers put in place since late February 2022 shows that these have decreased significantly, today covering an estimated trade value of $11.8bn, down from $29.6bn a year ago," Okonjo-Iweala added.
