Trade, investment crucial for continued recovery: WEF

Agency :
Trade and investment remain essential for the continued recovery of the global economy, participants said at the 54th World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting here this week.

“Without a free flow of trade, I don’t think we can recover,” Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director-general of the World Trade Organization (WTO), said in a session exploring the role of trade and investment as a driver of economic growth.

Stressing a two-way relationship between growth and trade, she said the WTO is negotiating an investment facilitation agreement with 110 countries, in an effort to help developing countries “sweep away barriers” for investment to flow in and revitalize trade and growth.

According to Okonjo-Iweala, the WTO was “slightly less optimistic” about its projected 3.3 percent growth in commodity trade this year due to the tensions in the Red Sea and the downgrade of global growth.