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UNCTAD estimates show that in the third quarter of 2021 world trade continued its strong recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic – albeit unevenly across countries and sectors.

Slow progress in digitalization and paperless transactions, lack of transparency in regulatory procedures and weaknesses in long-term planning are among the issues holding back port performance in the region.

The continent also remains the largest seafarer-supplying region in the world. Four of the top five countries supplying seafarers in 2021 were from Asia.

UNCTAD says the African Continental Free Trade Area could boost intra-African trade by up to 33% and cut the continent’s trade deficit by 51%.

UNCTAD warns that global consumer prices will rise significantly in the year ahead until shipping supply chain disruptions are unblocked and port constraints and terminal inefficiencies are tackled.

UNCTAD predicts that annual growth in maritime trade between 2022 and 2026 will slow to 2.4%, compared to 2.9% over the past two decades.

By Daniel Hopp, UNCTAD, and Ryan Maia and Himanshu Sharma, UNEP

UNCTAD helps strengthen international trade statisticians’ skills and capacity, for a continuous flow of high-quality statistics amid pandemic-induced disruptions to data supply.

The 2021 update of the UNCTAD SDG Pulse illustrates in numbers countries’ progress and challenges in achieving the sustainable development goals by 2030.

An UNCTAD report analyses this group of vulnerable nations in the wake of the pandemic, which is estimated to have led to a dramatic fall in their GDPs, especially in those that depend highly on tourism.