GENEVA: The World Trade Organization’s chief said Tuesday she believes the world is heading towards a global recession due to multiple colliding crises and called for policies to revive growth.
“I think a global recession. That’s what I think we are edging into. But at the same time, we have to start thinking of the recovery. We have to restore growth,” Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told the opening of the WTO’s annual public forum in Geneva.
Reuters: The head of the WTO told Reuters that she expects that global trade forecasts will be revised lower from the current 3% for 2022, citing the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and related food and energy crises.
“We are in the middle of revising our forecasts now but it’s not looking very promising. All the indicators are pointing to downside numbers,” Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told Reuters in an interview. “Grosso modo the outlook is looking gloomy,” she said, without giving exact estimates.
The WTO already revised down its forecast for global trade growth this year to 3% from 4.7% in April. It projected 3.4% growth in 2023.
