CHAPTER 1.1 Enabling Trade in the Global Crisis

This Report is being written at a time when global trade is shrinking, by some estimates even more rapidly than it did at the start of the Great Depression (see Figure 1). For the most part, the decline does not reflect the impact of the institutional factors we emphasize in the Enabling Trade Index (ETI). Fortunately, thus far trade policy is not the driving factor. Global leaders have acknowledged the dangers of protectionism and, with some exceptions that we discuss later, have not responded to the crisis by imposing new barriers. Similarly, customs and other regulatory agencies are, by and large, operating in the same way as they were before the turmoil.Trans-portation costs are actually moderating the declines because they have dropped in response to lower fuel prices and the emergence of excess cargo capacity