Global trade to grow 9.5 per cent this year: WTO

World trade is expected to grow 9.5 per cent in 2010, after suffering its biggest collapse in 70 years, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) said on Friday. "Our economists are forecasting a world trade growth for 2010 of 9.5 per cent, with developing countries' trade growing 11 per cent and industrialised countries' trade growing by 7.5 per cent," WTO director-general Pascal Lamy said.

"This means that trade-wise, there is light at the end of the tunnel and it's certainly a good forecast, good news for the world economy," he added.

World trade plunged 12 per cent in 2009 due to the global economic crisis. Now it seems set to rebound, but WTO says that continued trade expansion means that it will take another year for trade volumes to surpass the peak levels of 2008.

A danger to the recovery is the "significant slack" remaining in the global economy, meaning that factories and production facilities around the world continue to operate at well below capacity. It will take a while before new capacity it added.

The other significant factor is unemployment, which is likely to remain high throughout 2010 in many countries, according to the WTO.

The WTO uses volume to measure changes in global trade because it is not distorted by changes in commodity prices or exchange rates.

In dollar terms, the value of world merchandise exports fell 23 per cent to $12.15 trillion in 2009, while world commercial services exports declined 13 per cent to $3.31 trillion. This marked the first time since 1983 that trade in commercial services declined year on year.