The Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, says that despite ongoing policy uncertainties, 72 per cent of world trade still takes place under the organisation’s framework.
Okonjo-Iweala made this known in Abuja at the ongoing 7th Africa Emerging Markets Forum, jointly organised by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Emerging Markets Forum (EMF), and the Centre for the Study of Economies of Africa (CSEA).
According to her, world merchandise trade grew by 4.6 per cent in modern terms, as surging demand for AI-related goods offset weaknesses linked to tariff increases and trade policy uncertainty. Services trade, she noted, grew even faster, up 5.3 per cent, with digitally delivered services trade growing at almost six per cent.
“Most countries continue to trade on rules-based WTO terms,” she said, noting that around 72 per cent of global goods trade flows on core WTO most-favoured-nation tariffs, with an additional 16 per cent moving under wider WTO-linked frameworks, largely through bilateral and regional trade agreements built on WTO foundations.
Okonjo-Iweala said global goods trade volumes in 2025 were over 12 per cent higher than in 2019, the year before the COVID-19 pandemic, while services trade volumes were 31 per cent higher over the same period.
On the ongoing Strait of Hormuz crisis, she said countries have largely responded with trade-facilitating rather than trade-restrictive measures, lifting trade restrictions, easing the flow of oil and gas products, and seeking alternative routes for oil and fertiliser exports from the region. However, she cautioned that these measures have not been enough to fully offset the impact of the strait’s closure, which has driven up energy, fertiliser, and food prices, hitting vulnerable African economies particularly hard.
She added that while strategic competition among nations continues to affect certain sensitive products and bilateral relationships, most countries still favour continued interdependence, operating within what she described as “concentric circles” of closer or looser economic integration.
Citing the Global South as an example of this shifting trade landscape, Okonjo-Iweala noted that the share of South-South trade in global totals has risen from under one-tenth in 1995 to about a quarter today. She revealed that of the 384 regional trade agreements formally notified to the WTO, 49 per cent are among developing countries, with the South-South share appearing even higher among agreements yet to be notified. She added that 22 economies outside the WTO’s current 166 members are still working toward accession.
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