Trade growth nosedives to seven-year low

Geneva: Growth in world trade slowed in the second quarter of this year to its lowest for nearly seven years, the CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis said.

In the three months ended June, world trade rose by only 0.6 per cent at an annual rate compared with the previous three months, CPB said.

"This is the weakest quarterly performance since the drop in world trade in the final quarter of 2001," it said in its monthly analysis of global trade flows.

CPB provides trade data to the EU Commission for its surveys of the euro area, and also works closely with the World Bank on its trade series.

US imports

Steeply falling US imports were one of the main factors in the weak second-quarter growth, which followed a rise of 7.1 per cent in the first quarter, it said.

On a 12-month perspective, trade growth has been slowing steadily since late 2006, CPB data show.

Trade in the 12 months ended June was six per cent higher than in the previous 12 months, compared with a high in the current cycle of 9.4 per cent in 2006, it said.

World trade volume dropped by 1.3 per cent in June from the previous month based on preliminary data, following a drop of 0.6 per cent in May (marginally revised down from -0.5 per cent). In June, the strongest import drop occurred in the European Union (-2.4%).