Mapping the key trends in global trade

Globalization and trade have become regular front-page news stories, which shouldn’t surprise us. We’ve seen first-hand what happens when trade patterns and supply chains are disrupted – and the vital role the flow of goods plays in our quality of life and the cost of living. So it’s only logical that these issues have topped agendas in political policy meetings, company board rooms, university research centers, and newspaper editorial rooms.

The Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have given global trade a series of dramatic shocks, coming in the turbulent wake of the US-China trade war, Brexit, and the 2008 global financial crisis. It’s a new age of uncertainty, and our world appears unstable and unpredictable. Some people are even proclaiming that globalization is dead.

How concerned should we be? Is trade still an attractive source of growth? What happens when we deep dive into the data and conduct a thorough, fact-based analysis? The DHL Trade Growth Atlas is the result of a concerted effort to answer these questions. After over ten years of insights from the DHL Global Connectedness Index, we know the value of understanding the long-term global trade landscape for navigating short-term shifts in economic and trade growth.

In partnership with NYU Stern's Center for the Future of Management and its DHL Initiative on Globalization, the DHL Trade Growth Atlas examines global trade growth trends and the trade patterns of 173 countries worldwide. Combined, these countries make up more than 99% of world trade, GDP, and population.

The inaugural edition of the DHL Trade Growth Atlas paints a rich portrait of the evolving landscape of global trade growth, drawing on more than one million data points on country-to-country flows of goods. It reviews the current outlook for global trade growth, tracks shifts in the geography of international trade, ranks countries based on the speed and scale of their trade growth, examines the mix of goods traded, and measures broader changes in the business environment. In addition, the report includes a one-page profile on each country to provide a closer look at individual trading patterns.

The result is a surprisingly upbeat assessment of the prospects for future trade growth, despite recent shocks and worsening macroeconomic conditions in much of the world. Moreover, the facts give us many encouraging takeaways. For example, the latest forecasts indicate large opportunities to grow international trade. That’s good news because cross-border exchange can help accelerate economic growth, lower inflation, and contribute to more resilient and diversified supply chains. What’s more, trade growth is expanding across a broader range of countries, creating promising opportunities in both advanced and emerging economies.

International trade defies predictions

Each economic crisis seems to cause people to question the resilience of globalization and trade. Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine have triggered renewed uncertainty. But the data tells a different story. The Atlas shows us that trade in goods has surged to as high as 10% above pre-pandemic levels. And it highlights the power of commerce to accelerate growth, lower prices, and diversify sources of critical imports. With inflation at multi-decade highs and economies slowing down, global trade is now more crucial than ever.

Analysts have downgraded trade growth forecasts in the wake of the war in Ukraine, but the most recent projections call for trade to grow slightly faster in 2022 and 2023 than over the preceding decade. They also expect it to modestly outpace GDP growth, which underscores the role of international trade in the world economy. In addition, the robust cross-border ecommerce growth we have seen in recent years should continue, which means more players will gain access to international markets.

The globalization gap is changing

While trade in emerging economies continues to grow the fastest, current forecasts imply that 55% of global trade growth will occur in advanced economies over the next five years. Comparing regions, Europe is forecast to generate almost as much total trade growth as East Asia and the Pacific (37%).

What does that tell us? It means that there are significant trade growth opportunities in both advanced and emerging economies and across nearly all regions of the world. The trends we see underscore this notion. For example, the share of global trade conducted by emerging economies (including China) soared from 24% in 2000 to 40% in 2012, but it has been fluctuating around this number ever since.

Emerging economies have traditionally been producers of raw materials, while sophisticated products were the domain of advanced economies. This has changed considerably. Emerging economies are also becoming increasingly important exporters of complex capital goods, such as industrial equipment and engines.