Geneva, 30 December 2021 (TDI): Recent data posted by the International Trade Centre (ITC) notes that global exports have increased between October 2020 and 2021, with fossil fuels showing the largest overall increase.
ℹ️ Fresh data
Global exports grew by 16% in Oct. 2021, as compared to Oct. 2020.
Like in the previous month, #FossilFuels saw the largest growth (+81%), making mineral primary products the strongest sector for #export.
Learn more from #TradeBriefs⬇️
— International Trade Centre (ITC) (@ITCnews) December 28, 2021
Overall global exports rose by 16% in October 2021 as compared to October 2020. Developing countries saw the most growth at 21% beating out least developed countries and developed countries who each stood at 19% and 12% respectively.
Year-over-year export growth was the strongest in Africa with a growth of 42% while the least amount of growth took place in Europe, with a less than stellar 11% increase.
As far as specific sectors are concerned vehicle export saw a negative trend with a decline of 13% due to COVID-19 and the resultant semiconductor chip shortage. A similar trend was seen with the textile industry where exports fell by 2%.
On the other hand, fossil fuel export witnessed a sizeable surge in export at 81% as did mineral products at 46%. Agriculture, fisheries, and food exports increased by 12% while manufacturing exports grew by 13%.
Trade Restrictions and Trade Measures
Many governments implemented temporary trade measures in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure sufficient procurement and trade of medical supplies and food items.
These measures peaked in April 2020 at 128 measures and continued to increase manifold between March and October 2021. A decline was observed soon after. In October 2021 there were 231 active measures with 83 applying to exports 148 to imports.
Some countries placed export restrictions on medical products and food items to safeguard their own interests and people. These restrictions were mainly found to be present in Europe and Asia for the latter and Africa for the former.
67.7% of export restricting countries have now eased or completely repealed their restrictions while 32.3% of countries continuing are still continuing with these measures.
