Trade protection measures still on the rise globally

摘要

Although the number of bilateral trade deals is increasing, and a truncated multilateral Doha deal has been agreed, over the past six months most G20 members have put in place new trade restrictions or measures that have the potential to restrict trade, according to a new WTO report.A total of 116 new G20 initiated trade restrictive measures were identified since the last WTO report published in mid-May, up from 109 measures recorded for the previous seven-month period.These were mainly new trade remedy actions, in particular the initiation of anti-dumping investigations, tariff increases and more stringent customs procedures. New measures affect around 1.1% of G20 merchandise imports, equivalent to 0.9% of world merchandise imports.