At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, such was the scale of the economic disruption caused by lockdown measures that there was much talk of the collapse of global trade. In the midst of the lockdowns, in April, the World Trade Organization estimated that the decline would amount from anywhere between 13 and 32 percent. In a similar vein, UNCTAD was forecasting a 20 percent decline in global trade for 2020.
However, recently released trade statistics across the world reveal that those forecasts may have been overly pessimistic and underestimated the relative resilience of the global trading system. In fact, in June, after several months of sharp declines, trade volumes recorded their biggest monthly rise on record, with a 7.6 percent increase. East Africa may be shadowing these global trends.