The World Trade Organization (WTO) has revealed a sharp decline in new measures to restrict trade as governments turned their attention to the health crisis and pledged to maintain commerce.
in a new report , published on Wednesday (18.11.2020), the multilateral organization said that New measures by G-20 countries to limit imports of non-medical products covered US$ 42,9 billion in the period from mid-May to mid-October 2020That compared with $417.5 billion in the prior period from mid-October 2019.
Restrictive measures narrowly outnumbered those facilitating trade. Of the 133 COVID-19 trade and trade-related measures recorded for G20 economies since the outbreak of the pandemic, 63% were trade-facilitating in nature and 37% were trade-restrictive. Ten COVID-19 restrictive measures on goods adopted by G20 economies had been repealed by mid-October.
The report noted that one factor behind the lower coverage of such measures was that trade itself had declined, by 21% for goods and 30% for commercial services in the second quarter.
Other factors he cited were a shift in government attention to responding to the pandemic, a general commitment to keeping trade flowing and a relative ceasefire in trade conflicts, such as between the United States and China, which boosted the figures in 2018 and 2019.
Including all measures imposed since 2009, Restrictions now affect just over 10% of imports in the G20 countries, according to the report.
“COVID-19 has resulted in an almost unprecedented decline in economic output and trade,” said WTO Deputy Director-General Yonov Frederick Agah.
«Trade will play a key role in enabling a strong economic recovery, so it is encouraging to see the general commitment of G20 countries to keep trade flowing.”
In the case of medical supplies and medicines, restrictive trade measures in January mainly took the form of export bans and covered $111 billion worth of goods. However, this was counterbalanced by measures to facilitate trade flows, while almost 30% of the new restrictive measures had since been repealed.
The report also shows that G20 economies continued to use WTO bodies to address trade concerns.
The 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.
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