GENEVA, Switzerland (Reuters) — Global goods trade will grow by 3.3 percent this year and by four percent in 2016, less than previously forecast, mainly due to sluggish economic growth, the World Trade Organization said.
The WTO figures are based on economic growth estimates from organizations including the International Monetary Fund.
Although the forecasts do suggest some modest growth in world goods trade, they follow repeated downward revisions of trade forecasts as the economic outlook worsened.
Trade grew by 2.8 percent in 2014, far less than an original forecast of 4.7 percent. The new expectation of 3.3 percent growth this year, revised down from 5.3 percent is far below the long-term trend.
