Trade

• We expect a plunge of 14.3% in the global volume of trade in 2020 and the recovery in the forthcoming years with growth rates of 13.9% year-on-year in 2021 and 3.5% in 2022.
• In 2020, we forecast a fall in global trade in goods and services by -13% in volume terms, leading to USD4trn of trade losses.
• India plans to retain its import tax rate of 5% for certain types of batteries, including batteries for electric vehicles, until 2022, but will increase it to 15% thereafter to promote local manufacturing.
• In the UK, the risk of not concluding a trade deal with Europe before the end of 2020 is rising.
• A disruptive switch to UK trade on World Trade Organization - based rules, for example, could bring about a small contraction in GDP in the first quarter of 2021, with growth for the full year down to 6.7%.
• New Hope's 69% profit fall on an underlying basis, from $384 million to $119 million, comes as the COVID-19 economic slowdown weighs on global energy demand and the price of coal, one of Australia's largest commodity export.
• Mobile sales are expected to hit $314 billion by the end of the year with total e-commerce sales expected to rise to nearly $710 billion.
• As domestic activity contracts, so goes the international economy; trade will shrink by around one-fifth in 2020, foreign direct investment flows by up to 40% and remittances will drop by over $100 billion.
• The uptick in e-commerce advertising spend mirrors a rapid increase in online purchasing; consumers will spend an additional $183bn online in 2020 as a direct result of COVID-19 with total e-commerce sales set to rise by 30.4% - $677bn - to $2.9trn worldwide.
• After consultations with the Canadian government, the U.S. has determined that trade is expected to normalize in the last four months of the year, declining after surges experienced earlier in the year.
• In the last two years, the rise of a new kind of online retail has created an opportunity for Bytedance to jump into the biggest arena in all of China tech: e-commerce.
• Philippines and Malaysia for example are projected to grow at 25% and 23% respectively, while India - where e-commerce sales are projected to hit US$50bn in 2020 - is projected to grow at 21%.
• S-commerce is forecast to grow by 34% in the US next year and an average of 28% in China over the next 3 years.
• A ranking of the best countries in the world for digital tech trading opportunities, the UK takes the second place behind the US - largely the result of the UK's impressive online retail and e-commerce sales, which are valued at £688.4 billion.
• Intra-Asia trade is expected to fall 13% from 2019 to 2020 compared with a drop of 20% in East-to-West trade.
• More than 2 billion people now regularly make ecommerce purchases worldwide, and mobile ecommerce has continued to grow - nearly 73% of ecommerce sales are expected to take place on mobile devices by 2021.
• U.S. e-commerce sales are expected to surpass $1 trillion and represent 18.1% of total retail sales in the United States.
• The first stage of 100,000 tonnes of annual capacity is expected to come online in 2020, and will produce nickel sulphate for export to China.
• More recently, in the first semester of 2020, COVID-19-related disruptions to the local markets and trade, already hampered by the lingering impact of the prolonged conflict, provided further support, as did the lower imports due to the border screening implemented by the Government of Uganda.
• By the end of 2020, the global e-commerce sales will reach a smashing $4.2 trillion, making up for 16% of total retail sales around the world.
• The UK has secured a free trade agreement with Japan, which is the UK's first major trade deal as an independent trading nation and will increase trade with Japan by an estimated £15.2 billion.
• If no trade agreement is completed by the end of the year, the UK will not have any formal deal with the EU - which accounted for 43% of UK exports in 2019.

Last updated: 04 October 2020