In the first few months of 2015, a series of economic data, including quarterly GDP statistics and surveys of business sentiment, pointed to a solid recovery in the European Union, slowing output growth in the us and a slowdown in emerging economies. In the last quarter of 2014 and the first quarter of 2015, Eurozone GDP grew at an annualised rate of 1.6%, compared with an average of 0.7% in the first three quarters of 2014. After solid growth in the last three quarters of 2014, the United States posted a slight negative growth in the first quarter of 2015. It's a similar story in emerging economies, where China's world trade statistics 2015 showed a third consecutive quarter of slowing growth, but still maintained a faster pace of growth compared to other countries, at about 5.5 percent (annualized). India's economy, meanwhile, accelerated by 8.7% while Brazil's shrank by 0.8%. Russia's economy remained weak from 2014 to early 2015.
The divergence between the US and Eurozone monetary policy since the second quarter of 2015 has been seen as a risk to global trade and output in the second half of the year, with the fed considering raising interest rates. At this time, the European central bank's interest rates began to enter a phase of monetary easing. A rise in us interest rates has a potential knock-on effect on developing economies, potentially triggering volatility in financial markets, as well as affecting exchange rates and investment flows.
The old two-to-one relationship between the growth in global trade and the growth in global GDP seems to have disappeared, as trade and output have grown at the same rate over the past three years.
World trade statistics 2015 show a modest recovery in world trade and total output in the first half of 2015, indicating that this year's trend will not change much.
