Page 8 - Policy Economic Report - June 2024

POLICY AND ECONOMIC REPORT
OIL & GAS MARKET

Global trade

According to World Bank, global trade in goods and services was nearly flat in 2023—the weakest
performance outside of global recessions in the past 50 years. Global trade in goods and services is
projected to expand by 2.5 percent in 2024 and 3.4 percent in 2025 but remain well below the average
rates of the two decades preceding the pandemic. In all, global trade growth in 2020-24 is set to register
the slowest half decade of growth since the 1990s.

Amid a sharp slowdown in global industrial production, the volume of goods trade contracted for most of
2023 and fell by 1.9 percent for the year. The evolution of goods trade diverged across regions, with
volumes declining in advanced economies, especially in Europe, and stagnating in EMDEs as expansions
in China and Europe and Central Asia (ECA) offset contractions in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC),
Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), and Middle East and North Africa (MNA).

The value of global services trade grew about 9 percent in 2023, driven primarily by a recovery in tourism
flows—exports of travel services surged by about 38 percent.

Figure 3: Global trade growth

Percent
6

4

2

0 2010-19 2023e 2024f 2025f
average
2000-09
average

Source- World Bank

2. Emerging Market & Developing economies (EMDEs) face high debt and exposed to climate
change exposure risk- World Bank

• High levels of debt across many EMDEs, notably Low-Income Countries (LICs) highlight the need for
global policy action to prevent costly debt crises. LICs are especially exposed to climate change risks
and have the largest investment needs to achieve a resilient and low-carbon pathway. Despite
improvements over the past two decades, EMDEs continue to lag advanced economies in access to
key infrastructure.

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