2025年贸易与发展报告：濒临边缘

1.Setting the stage A century after the Great Depression, tariffs have once again taken centre stage inglobal policy debates. Rising trade barriers and geopolitical tensions are strainingmultilateral norms and weighing on global economic prospects. Global output growth continues to lag behind the pre-pandemic trend. Despitemomentary resilience in early 2025, growth momentum remains fragile and cloudedby uncertainty. Investor anxiety has boosted financial markets, but not productiveinvestment. 2.The trade front Pre-tariff frontloading and AI-related investment temporarily lifted merchandise tradein late 2024 and early 2025. World trade expanded by around 4% in the first halfof 2025, though underlying growth was closer to 2.5–3% once temporary factorsare excluded. As tariffs take hold and frontloading fades, trade could slow markedly into 2026.Low-income economies and small enterprises are most exposed, as limited accessto finance and persistent uncertainty about market access hamper long-termplanning and investment. Tariff anticipation triggered a short-lived boostin world trade in early 2025(Index numbers, average 2021=100) 3.The financeconnection As value chains evolve, the financialization of trade deepens. Over 90% of worldtrade depends on the infrastructure of global finance. Monetary policies, exchangerate movements and investor sentiment transmit quickly through the global financialsystem, shaping trade flows and industrial production. TheTrade and Development Report 2025highlights how the financial system bothenables and constrains trade. Ignoring these financial linkages risks policy blindspots in addressing trade turbulence. Trade in financial times Monthly global financial cycle and detrended world trade volumes(Standard deviations) Note:The global financial cycle is a statistical construct that captures common fluctuations in financial activitybased on more than 800 asset prices relating to credit conditions, risk-taking, capital flows, leverage, etc. Tradedata have been linearly detrended. The two series are standardized with a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1. 4.The global cycle Trade and finance move together. The global financial cycle generates powerfulswings in credit, capital and risk appetite that ripple across world trade. Volatility infinancial markets often translates into disruptions in trade volumes. Policy uncertainty, while off its 2020 highs, remains elevated. Persistent uncertaintyimpairs investment, job creation and export performance, particularly in developingeconomies. Financial sphere Financial factors shape trade Schematic representation ofkey transmission channelslinking financial factors totrade outcomes Source:UNCTAD, partly inspired byHabib and Venditti (2019). Note:Thefigure illustrates how financialdrivers, such as changes in UnitedStates monetary policy, movementsin the dollar and shifts in investor riskaversion, interact to shape the globalfinancial cycle. This, in turn, transmitsto the real economy, impacting tradeand global industrial production. Arrowsindicate the direction of influence. 5.The South in focus The geography of trade has diversified: the global South now accounts for over30% of global output, up from 18% in 1995. Yet the financial system remainsconcentrated in the North, anchored by dollar-based payment networks andinstitutions. This misalignment between trade dynamism and financial dependence createsstructural vulnerabilities. Smaller and poorer economies face higher borrowingcosts, greater exposure to currency volatility and mounting debt burdens. The South in the global economy: An uneven riseThe share of the global South in world trade, production and financial markets, 2007 and 2024(Percentage) Note:Trade refers to the aggregated values of merchandise and service imports and exports for respectiveyear, where imports are retrieved from export side by reversing directions of trade flows to keep figuresconsistent. For trade, the European Union is observed as one economy, thereby intra-EU trade is notincluded. Financial market capitalization is estimated based on a representative sample of 333 companiesacross 77 countries. Of the 333 companies: 110 are based in the global North, representing 11 economies;223 are based in the global South, spanning 28 economies. The companies are from 11 sectors: energy,materials, industrials, consumer discretionary, consumer staples, health care, financials, information technology,communication services, utilities, and real estate. GDP (in current US dollars), source of data: World Bank. 6.The road ahead The year 2025 marks a turning point for globalization. Trade and finance areincreasingly interdependent, requiring fresh thinking on global governance and aninclusive financial architecture. UNCTAD’sTrade and Development Report 2025calls for coordinated national andinternational action to: Boostfiscal revenues and domesticresource mobilization;Deepenregional integration todivers