Interactive Webinar - Prospects for Commonwealth Trade in a Post-COVID Landscape

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted international trade, investment, movement and supply chains in unprecedented ways, with significant implications for the Commonwealth’s 54 member countries.

Meanwhile, political tensions are escalating trade disputes between the USA and China (and now the USA and the EU). The pandemic is also perpetuating an ongoing economic slowdown in China and India, while the proliferation of trade-restrictive measures is further depressing the outlook for world trade growth. This global trade turmoil presents challenges for Commonwealth countries.

International trade will have a large role to play in the post-crisis recovery and resilience building phase. However, keeping trade policy innovations during the COVID-19 outbreak in view it seems that trade flows will be highly challenged in the post-COVID world. As the virus comes under control, three major areas of the debate around international trade are emerging: (i) localisation of global value chains and trade-offs between efficiency and resilience; (ii) re-emergence of protectionism in the garb of health emergencies and deteriorating relations between the USA and China, which recently fought a trade war; and (iii) shifts in the economic drivers of trade flows, such as the fourth industrial revolution, 3D printing and other technologies.