BERLIN, January 11. /TASS/. World trade, adjusted for seasonal fluctuations and price changes, fell 1.3% month-on-month in December and the recent attacks on container ships in the Red Sea are one of the reasons for the decline, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy said in its report.
"The latest data update of the Kiel Trade Indicator for December 2023 points to a continuation of the slightly negative trend in global trade and trade between major economies. The conflict in the Middle East, in particular attacks on container ships in the Red Sea, is likely to be one reason for the weak trading month," the report says.
The institute experts pointed out that "the volume of containers transported there plummeted by more than half and is currently almost 70% below the volume that would usually be expected."
"The current volume is only around 200,000 containers per day, compared to around 500,000 containers in November," the report says.
The detour of ships due to the attacks in the Red Sea around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa means that the time it takes to transport goods between Asian production centers and European consumers is significantly extended by up to 20 days," says Juian Hinz, Director of the Trade Policy Research Center.
According to the Institute, in the EU, exports and imports of goods decreased compared to November by 2% and 3.1%, respectively, for Germany - by 1.9% and 1.8%. Despite the fact that for the United States the route through the Red Sea does not play such a serious role as for the EU countries, US exports decreased by 1.5%, imports by 1%.
China's trade is bucking the trend: its exports increased by 1.3% in December and its imports by 3.1%. Experts at the German Institute attribute this to the traditional increase in the country's trade turnover before the Chinese New Year.