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Failure to reform WTO could cost global economy 10% of output by 2050

thenationalnews.com · 3h · first reportShare

The global economy could lose as much as 10 per cent of its output by 2050 if countries fail to reform and preserve the World Trade Organisation ’s multilateral trading system, the WTO has warned, as geopolitical rivalries increasingly reshape commerce. The world trading system is suffering its biggest disruption in 80 years, with trade rules being challenged on a scale not seen since the institution was created in the aftermath of the Great Depression and the Second World War, the WTO said in its World Trade 2026 report on Tuesday. In projections where multilateral trade rules are eroded in a “geo-fragmented world”, global gross domestic product would shrink by 5.1 per cent and exports would fall by 18.6 per cent if trade co-operation between nations is organised around geopolitical blocs. In simulations of a world dominated by free-trade agreements, the WTO estimates global economic output loss of 6.9 per cent and world exports plunging almost 27 per cent. The gap between strengthene