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From the effects of the Corona pandemic and associated economic crises, to what happened to international trade and its sharp decline at the onset of the crisis, which caused the World Trade Organization to forecast an annual decline in it , whose estimates ranged from 13% to 32%. However, in recent weeks, import demands for manufactured goods have again increased in 14 of the 38 countries that are the largest contributors to international trade and whose trade and economic activity is controlled by research firm IHS. Markit. The Wall Street Journal on Economic Affairs compared this performance to what happened after the 2008 global financial crisis. Noting that indicators of the return to trade after the Corona crisis came faster than the previous crisis, as in witness the increasing rates of sea freight in several Asian, American and European ports, reaching certain levels. Before the Corona crisis, but it did not market goodwill without reservations that the level of trade in these countries is still much lower than in the previous year. This is to be expected in a global economy that is experiencing the deepest recession since the Great Depression, which peaked in the 1930s.
In addition, this trade recovery is not complete, as China, Korea and Germany have explained. Exporting countries that are more dependent on manufactured goods are better off than those whose services have a greater impact on their economy, such as Italy and Spain, whose economies will shrink by around 10% compared to the previous year. ‘last year.
If we turn to what is more important than short term changes and its agreements and fluctuations to the general trend of future trade movements and its impact on developing economies and emerging markets, including Arab economies, as well as On the extent of their growth and their ability to create jobs and fight poverty, we should consider four factors that are helping to shape the new globalization:
First, a number of major Western economies had adopted, prior to the Corona crisis, measures that inhibited trade movements, restrained migration to their lands, and threatened the fundamental working principles of the international multilateral economic system, the impact of which would go beyond the consequences of the current crisis. The disparity in performance among the largest economies will also push stimulus packages more costly to countries’ budgets and increase their debts. It will also fuel recourse to more protectionist measures, which will again hamper the movement of trade.
Second, globalization may not be receding by some estimates, but it will form according to its actors, between a relative decline in the influence of some economies that have continued to dominate global trade and investment since the Second World War, and a greater emergence of the roles of emerging economies belonging to half of the eastern world with marked growth. Its capacities in the fields of innovation and information technologies.
Third, global commerce is shifting from container transport to its e-commerce platforms and computer networks to transport smaller and more valuable packages than the traditional containers upon which the international trade movement relied in the last century. In a previous article published in this glorious newspaper, I discussed what Jack Ma, founder of the Chinese group Alibaba, said when he predicted ten years ago that the parcel trade would exceed one billion parcels per year. , his collaborators did not believe it, so this figure is realized every week rather than annually. And that he aims, through his institution, to link the logistics of all production, trade and consumption sites to ensure that parcels of goods and products reach their requesters within a timeframe not exceeding 72 hours anywhere in the world, while reducing shipping costs by around two-thirds thanks to large databases.
Fourth, the new trends of globalization are affected by significant changes in the demographics of developed countries, with an increase in the average age of their population, changes in the patterns and volume of consumption, and the type of products. required in their markets, so their imports decrease and their participation in international trade decreases. In addition, the increase in the proportion and needs of middle-income people in developing countries will change trade trajectories in the directions of this emerging globalization, as Mark Levinson, business analyst of international trade explains in his new book on the transformation of commerce from the “transfer” of traditional goods to the “publishing” of products containing intellectual property and knowledge values. High. You find, for example, that computer applications and software make up a higher percentage of the price of cars, which can reach 30% of their value. He also notes in his book that small industries close to consumption areas are increasing their market share.
All of this, in my opinion, is an overhaul of international trade lines, not only in the context of new globalization, but of regional arrangements different from existing ones. Economic activity will be oriented towards investment and trade wherever labor rules become easier, the investment climate develops, legislation stabilizes, the foundations of governance are raised, rights are preserved and contracts respected. Faced with intense competition for access to information technology innovations, it is necessary to prepare for it by investing in people, their skills and mastery of the sciences of digital transformation and by managing the main databases.
Will the Arabs make up for the gains from trade in the era of parcels and what they lost in the era of containers? The answer should be in the context of dealing with a larger question about the future of Arab economic cooperation, compared to its current situation, which wasted the foundations of common culture, unity of language, geography. and the distinction of sites. All this has not facilitated the achievement of significant progress in the activation of the levels of economic integration or the effective implementation of its obligations: starting from the lower level represented in the preferential agreements for intra-Arab trade, which did not exceed 13% of total foreign trade, at the higher level of integration in the form of an economic union, Through free trade, customs union and the common market, which have not progressed despite the promises made and signed charters.
What is new in this area, despite the modest state of Arab economic cooperation, is the impact of the previous five factors which are reshaping globalization and stimulating economic diversification at the local level by resettling development and modernizing its areas. , especially for economies whose population size and sector diversity are capable of achieving digital transformation. These same factors are a catalyst for the revival of regional cooperation at the level of the world, and not of the Arab economic region alone, given the considerations of national interest and its priorities in the first place. Prioritizing these considerations among Arab countries would realize the benefits of regional cooperation that were achieved by the signatories of the Rome Agreement among European countries in 1957. As well as the founders of the Community of the ASEAN in 1967, achieve economic well-being by reducing the cost of transactions and increasing the size and scope of markets to meet the basic needs and requirements of their markets, and increase the ability to negotiate with external parties. In addition to the above, the achievement of the security and stability goals that were lacking in the Arab world for many years was the worst of this decade, which is about to turn its pages in this landmark year with the events he witnessed, the least of which was the intensity of what afflicted the world economy and its trade.
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