Global trade number were down by 0.8% month on month in April, following a 0.2% decline in March, according to the CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
The CPB noted the decline in trade was widespread. “Both import and export volumes contracted in most regions, the major exception being Japan, where imports continued to grow strongly while exports surged. The contraction in the euro area deepened.”
However the bureau caveats that monthly trade figures can be highly volatile. It prefers to focus on what it classes as trade momentum. Sadly, no solice there either: trade momentum decreased to 0.7% in April, non-annualised, which is about half the long-term average.
Alongside trade, world industrial production went down 0.4% in April, following an unrevised 0.2% increase in March. Again, there were marked declines in eurozone and also emerging Asia.
“Production momentum weakened to 1.2% (non-annualised) in April. In advanced economies as a whole momentum hardly moved, but there was a decline in emerging economies,” The CPB concluded.
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