World trade growth was on a sharply slowing trend in December as volumes dropped at unprecedented rates at the end of the year, the Dutch CPB economic institute said on Wednesday. In the 12 months ended December, trade growth slowed to 2.4 percent compared with the previous 12 months, down from 3.6 percent in November, said the CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis, whose data are used by the European Commission and World Bank.
In 2007 trade volumes grew 7.6 percent, against a high in the current cycle of 9.5 percent in November 2006, it said in its latest world trade monitor. The CPB data are further evidence that trade is slumping as developed and increasingly developing countries fall into the grip of recession. The International Monetary Fund forecast last month that world trade volumes would shrink 2.8 percent this year after growing 4.1 percent in 2008, down from 7.2 percent in 2007.
CPB said world trade in the last quarter of 2008 was 22.0 percent lower than the previous quarter at an annual rate, an unprecedented drop since it started tracking data in 1991. In the third quarter trade was still growing at an annual 8.8 percent over the previous three months.
The fourth-quarter figures reflect a 21.7 percent drop at an annual rate of emerging countries' imports, and a 48.3 percent annualised drop in Japanese imports. Looking at the more volatile monthly figures, trade volume in December was 7.0 percent lower than in November, when it fell 5.3 percent, both figures unprecedented since the series started.
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