The coronavirus pandemic could cause a deeper collapse of international trade flows than at any point in the postwar era, the World Trade Organization said. The Geneva-based trade body presented two possible scenarios for global trade in the years to come in a report published Wednesday, noting that the unprecedented nature of the health crisis could result in a wide range of outcomes.
In an optimistic scenario, the WTO said global merchandise trade could fall 13% in 2020 and rebound 21% in 2021 — compared with a 0.1% contraction in 2019. In the optimistic scenario, gross domestic product could contract by 2.5% in 2020 and grow by 7.4% in 2021. In a pessimistic case, the volume of global goods trade could drop by as much as 32% this year with the possibility of a 24% increase next year. In this situation, world GDP could shrink by as much as 8.8% in 2020 and expand by 5.9% in 2021.