In the last quarter of 2024, the value of world trade of goods continues to grow, but the prospects for 2025 are very uncertain as they could be affected by the possible changes in trade policies. Presenting today the latest survey of its Goods Trade Barometer, The composite indicator designed to provide information in time trend in world trade in goods compared to the recent trends, where barometer values above 100 are associated with above-trend trading volumes while values below 100 indicate that trade in goods has fallen to below the trend or will do so in the near future, the World Trade Organization explained that the latest reading of 102.7 suggests that trade will continue to grow consistently in the fourth quarter of this year.

Currently, all the component indices of the barometer remain in line with or above trend, with the exception of the electronic components (95.4) which has stabilized below below the trend. The indices that represent the orders and commodity indices are both in line with the trend (100.5), while those representing the aviation (102.9), automotive products (104.0) and container traffic in ports (105.8) are firmly above of the trend. In particular, in the last three months, the index of containerized shipping showed the most marked improvement, while the air transport index lost momentum. Export orders, usually components more predictive than the barometer, remain very close to the Base value of 100 suggesting steady business growth in the short term.

According to the most recent WTO forecasts of the last October 10th, the growth in trade volume for the whole of 2024 is expected to be around +2.7%, while growth in 2025 is expected to reach +3.0%. The WTO has found that the latest forecasts showed only modest variations globally compared to the previous forecasts in April, although there are there were some important changes at the regional level, with the Asian economies' exports and countries' imports North Americans who grew faster than expected in the first half of 2024. Meanwhile, exchanges continued to decline both on the European trade side and on the exports and on imports, weighing on growth of global trade.