World trade bounces back to pre-coronavirus levels

AMSTERDAM: International trade recovered at the end of 2020 to pre-coronavirus levels, making up for the sharp hit from the COVID-19 pandemic in the first half of the year, Dutch economic policy adviser CPB said on Thursday.

World trade increased 4% on a quarterly basis in the fourth quarter of last year, the CPB said, citing its widely used world trade monitor, taking growth for the whole of 2020 to 1.3%.

Trade levels were 0.6% higher than a month earlier in December, mainly helped by exports from advanced economies such as the United States, and by imports from emerging economies.


Global industrial production grew by 1.3% in the final month of last year, the CPB said, also taking it back to the level of early 2020.

The CPB world trade monitor is published monthly on behalf of the European Commission, and is also used by the International Monetary Fund to track trade flows.