The World Trade Organization (WTO) forecast today, Wednesday, the decline in global trade in goods this year due to the Covid-19 disease pandemic, before recording a possible recovery in 2021.
The WTO set a wide scope for the decline this year, to range between 13 and 32%, saying that there is still haze in the economic impact of the unprecedented health crisis.
The Geneva-based organization said that for 2021, it expects a recovery of between 21 and 24%, with the result largely dependent on the duration of the outbreak and the effectiveness of policy responses.
"The inevitable decline in trade and production will have painful consequences for individuals and companies, as well as the human suffering caused by this disease," said WHO head Roberto Izevedo.
Izevedo considered that it is important to define the direction of economic policy now, pointing out that it is possible to have a quick and strong recovery if things go perfectly, "If countries cooperate, we will witness a faster recovery than each country would have done for itself individually."
The optimistic scenario - according to the organization - expects the economy to recover again in the second half of this year, even as it shrinks in the first half.
The organization considered that the recovery will increase the possibility whenever businessmen and consumers view the crisis as a violent shock, but it also happened only once, and Izevedo said that investment and consumption expenditures will increase rapidly on this basis.
The organization expected that in the event of controlling the epidemic this year, it is expected to achieve growth in excess of 20% in most regions of the world, and warned that otherwise, the turmoil will be enormous in general.
The World Trade Organization has warned that the global trade crisis will "probably be greater than the trade contraction caused by the 2008-2009 global financial crisis."
The report said that if the two periods are "similar in certain respects", especially since governments intervene greatly to support companies and families, then they differ according to the nature of the epidemic itself and the measures used to contain it.
"Because of travel restrictions and social distancing to slow the spread of the disease, employment, transport and travel offers have been directly affected," the World Trade Organization said.
"Entire sectors of the national economies, such as hotels and restaurants, unnecessary retail trade, tourism and much of the industrialization have been closed," she added.