What’s next in international trade and production?

Having boosted the global economic growth until the great crisis in 2008-’09, since then the international trade has lost its capacity to support the global demand. Moreover, countries’ participation seems to have stopped its widening, with a smaller number of them involved in the growth processes and, consequently, a smaller number of countries attractive for Italian firms’ investments and exports.

In particular, Emerging Countries are showing a less intense internal markets opening to foreign goods and services, but not a less intense markets shares’ gain in international trade. China is the perfect, and biggest, example: an internal Chinese demand growth is actually (2014, latest data available) satisfied for only 11% by foreign goods, while in 2011 this share was about 14%. On the other side, a world demand growth is actually satisfied by Chinese goods for the 14%, doubling the 7% in 2011.

This scenario feeds so many doubts about future in those countries, such as the Western Europe and North American ones, which feel less attractiveness in global demand and rising threats in their internal markets competion and can represents one of the main cause in recent neo-protectionism issues.