Recently, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) released a global trade update report that pointed out that global trade will grow strongly in 2021 and is expected to reach a record high, but trade growth is uneven.

According to the report, global trade is expected to reach approximately US$28 trillion in 2021, an increase of approximately US$5.2 trillion over 2020, and an increase of approximately US$2.8 trillion from 2019 before the new crown pneumonia epidemic, which is equivalent to an increase of approximately 23% and 23% respectively. 11%. Specifically, in 2021, trade in goods will reach a record level of approximately US$22 trillion, and trade in services will be approximately US$6 trillion, still slightly lower than the level before the new crown pneumonia epidemic.

The report pointed out that in the third quarter of 2021, global trade is stabilizing, with a year-on-year growth of about 24%, which is significantly higher than the level before the epidemic, and an increase of about 13% compared to the third quarter of 2019. The growth area is broader than the previous quarters.

The recovery of trade in goods and services is still uneven, but there are signs of improvement. Specifically, in the third quarter of 2021, the total global trade in goods was approximately US$5.6 trillion, a record high. The recovery of service trade has been relatively slow, but it has also shown a momentum of growth, which is about US$1.5 trillion, which is still lower than the level of 2019. Compared with the same period last year, the growth rate of trade in goods (22%) is much higher than the growth rate of trade in services (6%). However, from a quarterly perspective, the quarter-on-quarter growth of trade in goods was about 0.7%, and the quarter-on-quarter growth of trade in services was about 2.5%, indicating that the trade in services was improving. It is expected that in the fourth quarter of 2021, the trend of slower growth in trade in goods and more positive growth in trade in services may continue. In the fourth quarter of 2021, the volume of trade in goods is expected to remain around US$5.6 trillion, while trade in services may continue to recover slowly.

The report believes that the growth rate of global trade will stabilize in the second half of 2021. Factors such as the weakening of epidemic restrictions, economic stimulus packages and rising commodity prices have promoted the positive growth of international trade in 2021. However, slowing economic recovery, disruption of logistics networks, increased transportation costs, geopolitical conflicts, and policies affecting international trade will cause great uncertainty in the outlook for global trade in 2022, and the level of trade growth in different countries will remain unbalanced.