World economy is slowing down, UNCTAD's new statistics say |

News:United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’s (UNCTAD) has released its Handbook of Statistics report.

Facts:

About the report:

The report provides a wide range of statistics and indicators relevant to the analysis of international trade, investment, maritime transport and development.

Key takeaways from the report:

The report has predicted that the World gross domestic product(GDP) is expected to grow by 2.3% which is 0.7% points less as compared to last year.
The report predicts that merchandise trade will drop by 2.4% to $19 trillion for 2019-2020.The drop is significant when compared to the growth in the last few years of 9.7% in 2018 and 10.7% in 2017.
The trade in services is also predicted to slow.It will increase only by 2.7% to $6 trillion, a considerable deceleration from 7.7% in 2018.
The report also said that world seaborne trade volumes experienced just a nominal surge by only 2.7% which was 4.7% in 2017.These and other trends underline the fact that the world economic activities are slowing down.
According to the report,the values of the goods exported exceeds the value of the goods imported especially for developing and transition economies.
Further,over the last few years,the trade surplus of developing countries has also decreased. PIt was $455 billion in 2014 and has reduced to $335 billion in 2018.

Additional information:

About UNCTAD:

UNCTAD is a permanent intergovernmental body established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1964.
It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland and part of the UN Secretariat.Currently,UNCTAD has 195 member states.
It was formed specifically to handle the problems of developing countries dealing with trade, investment and development issues.

Reports published by UNCTAD:UNCTAD produces a number of topical reports, including:

World economy is slowing down, UNCTAD’s new statistics say