WTO cuts 2012 global trade growth forecast

Reuters: World trade will grow by a mere 2.5% this year, dragged down by Europe to less than half of the previous 20-year average, the World Trade Organization said on Friday.

The estimate was a revision of the WTO’s previous 2012 growth forecast of 3.7%, which it made in April. It also forecast trade would expand by 4.5% in 2013, revised down from 5.6%. “I see the risk more on the downside than the upside,” WTO Director General Pascal Lamy said at a press conference in Singapore.