G20 still increasing protectionism, says joint WTO/UN/OECD report

GENEVA, June 18 (Reuters): Members of the Group of 20 leading economies are still doing more to restrict trade than to liberalise it, according to a report published by major world agencies on Wednesday.
The regular monitoring report, from the World Trade Organization, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the U.N. agency UNCTAD, said the G20 countries had put in place 112 new trade restrictions in the six months to mid-May.
Although that was slightly less than the 116 protectionist policies in the previous 6 months, and G20 countries had also done more to liberalise trade, "it is clear that overall trade restrictions have continued to accumulate," the report said.
"The vast majority of trade-restrictive measures taken by G20 members since the onset of the global financial crisis remain in place," it added.
The new protectionist policy steps, which outnumbered the liberalising measures, affected 0.2 per cent of world merchandise imports, the report said. The cumulative protectionism since October 2008 affected 4.1 per cent of world trade, equivalent to about $750 billion annually.
The goods most heavily affected by the latest protectionism were electrical machinery and pharmaceutical products, the WTO said.
The regular report on protectionism has recorded 1,185 trade-restrictive measures by the G20 since October 2008, and about 79 per cent were still in place by May 2014.