WTO monitoring indicates that members are taking steps to promote trade despite facing protectionist pressures.

WTO monitoring shows members acting to facilitate trade despite protectionist pressure:

Key Points from the Latest Trade Monitoring Update :

• Trade-Facilitating Measures: WTO members continue to introduce more trade-facilitating measures than trade-restricting ones on goods, demonstrating a commitment to keeping trade flowing despite current geopolitical uncertainty.
  • Between mid-October 2023 and mid-May 2024, 169 trade-facilitating measures were introduced, compared to 99 trade-restricting measures.
  • Most measures were on the import side, and new export restrictions declined significantly during this period.
  • The total trade coverage of trade-facilitating measures was estimated at USD 1,219.0 billion, up from USD 977.2 billion in the previous report.

• Trade Remedies:

  • The average number of trade remedy initiations increased to 24.6, with almost 90% initiated by G20 economies.
  • Anti-dumping measures were the most frequent, accounting for 70.3% of all initiations.
  • The trade coverage of trade remedy investigations was USD 56.1 billion, up from USD 24.6 billion in the last report.

• Services and Intellectual Property:

  • In the services sector, most new measures introduced by WTO members were trade-facilitating, either liberalizing or improving the regulatory framework.
  • Members also continued to refine their intellectual property regimes, with the implementation of new COVID-19 trade-related measures continuing to decline.

• Import Restrictions:

  • The stockpile of import restrictions in force has grown steadily since 2009, now covering an estimated USD 2,272 billion in trade, representing 9.7% of total world imports.

• Industrial Policy Subsidies:

  • There has been a rapid increase in industrial policy subsidies, particularly in areas related to climate change and national security.

Director-General’s Comments: Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala highlighted the resilience of world trade despite the challenging geopolitical environment, emphasizing that governments are still taking meaningful steps to liberalize and facilitate trade. She also noted the importance of using the WTO and other venues to resolve differences instead of engaging in retaliatory measures that could harm global trade.