CARIFORUM and UK EPA Study

7.2 Overview of Global Trade in Services

The WTO, in a 23 July 2021 release, reported that for 2020, global services trade declined by 21% for the full year, driven by continued weakness in travel services, with commercial services exports at the end of the first quarter of 2021 contracting by 7%, while imports fell by 10%, year on year.

Figure 12: Global Services Trade Performance (2020)

Source: WTO, UNCTAD, ITC

This was mainly due to the slow recovery of international travel, which declined by 62% during the first quarter of 2021, due to the impact of new COVID-19 variants, though sectors such as transport have recovered to 2020 levels, due to a surge in demand for goods and related freight rates.

Table 17: World Exports and Imports for Services (2020 to 2021)

Source: WTO, UNCTAD, ITC

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