[R-G] Global trade slump raises talk of 'deglobalization'

[Sid Shniad]

Globe and Mail Report on Business March 13, 2009 

Global trade slump raises talk of 'deglobalization' 

“What we're seeing is an unprecedented collapse in global demand.” 

⎯ Richard Kelly, senior economist,Toronto-Dominion Bank 

Marcus Gee 

As the global crisis worsens, the flow of trade and capital that lubricates the world economy is drying up. 

New figures released in Canada and the United States Friday showed another plunge in trade volumes as demand for their products and services crumbled. 

Canada registered a 9-per-cent fall in exports to $31.7-billion in January, while imports fell 7.9 per cent to $32.7-billion. The trade deficit widened to $993-million. Until December, Canada had run trade surpluses for 33 consecutive years. 

The global downturn has been so swift and so savage that it is calling into question the whole idea of globalization, the process that saw borders seem to vanish as goods and money washed all-but unimpeded from country to country. 

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has even warned of a coming “deglobalization” unless world leaders work to keep trade barriers down. 

“I've always said that globalization is reversible,” said Benjamin Tal, senior economist for CIBC World Markets. “And in many sectors, we are already seeing it go into reverse.” 

The World Bank says falling demand in rich economies is causing the steepest drop in world trade in 80 years, hammering poorer countries that make their livelihood from stocking the store shelves of the West. 

Money flows are plummeting, too. The World Bank says net private capital flows to emerging markets could fall to $165-billion (U.S.) this year, a mere 17 per cent of their 2007 level. In one week alone last month, investors pulled $1-billion out of emerging economies, Merrill Lynch reported. 

The speed of the global reversal has been shocking. Only a year ago, trade was growing at a yearly rate of about 20 per cent. In the last quarter of 2008, 36 of 51 countries surveyed by the World Bank saw their exports drop by double digits. 

Although January's decline in exports was widespread in Canada, nearly half was due to automotive products, which fell for a sixth consecutive month, Statistics Canada said. Exports to the United States, Canada's largest trading partner, fell 8.9 per cent to $23.3-billion. 

Countries that, like Canada, depend heavily on trade have naturally been hardest hit. Peter Hall, chief economist for Export Development Canada, said that in the trade hub of Singapore, many of the cranes that used to swing containers full of goods onto giant freighters now stand eerily still. Singapore's trade was down 38 per cent on an annualized basis in January. 

China, the world's third-largest economy, saw its exports dive a record 25.7 per cent last month, their fourth successive month of decline. 

“What we're seeing is an unprecedented collapse in global demand,” said Richard Kelly, senior economist for Toronto-Dominion Bank. “I don't think we've ever seen something this synchronized around the same time around the world.” 

Of course, even a sudden collapse in trade does not necessarily spell the end of globalization as a concept. Meeting this weekend, finance ministers of the G20 group of major economies are expected to pledge once again to avoid raising trade barriers as a way to protect their own economies. 

“I do think we want to keep our eyes on the long term and realize that we probably did benefit from the spread of globalization,” Mr. Kelly said. 

“It's like insurance: It's reducing your vulnerability by taking on someone else's risk. No economy can support itself.” 

With files from reporter Virginia Galt