A new report, A New Era: Global Trade in 2020 and Beyond, by The Economist Intelligence Unit and sponsored by Basware, has been released. The report focuses on the key factors driving global trade in the coming year. The findings are based on in-depth interviews with experts in global trade conducted in March 2020.
The five focus areas experts identified include:
- Covid-19
- US trade policy towards China
- US trade policy towards the EU
- Rising non-tariff protectionism
- Taxing digital trade
These topics are closely intertwined with the ongoing effects of the coronavirus pandemic. The overarching view is a sense of pessimism about prospects for global trade during the coming year. Yet there is also optimism for companies able to quickly identify how these disruptions affect their businesses and adapt to known structural changes including uncertainty in supply chains.
“This unprecedented health crisis has shaken the very core of what many believed was a stable, predictable element of doing business,” said Klaus Andersen, CEO of Basware. “Traditional business continuity strategies, like fully equipped failover sites and offices, have proven useless under these circumstances. Companies with fully digitalized workflows and a high degree of automation in place will always be in a better position to adapt to unforeseen situations today and in the future, retaining full business continuity and spend visibility. Future-proofing through automation, and prioritizing the ability to continue working from anywhere using secure cloud access, must be high on everyone’s agenda now.”
The report walks through impact scenarios that include an increasing temptation of protectionism, with export controls already introduced by many countries, mainly on medical equipment and agricultural supplies and the delay of important deadlines including the moratorium on customs duties on electronic transactions and the expected start of phase two of the US China trade agreement.
All of this presents global businesses with the challenge of being adaptive in their supply chains, and responsive in their financial operations, at a time of great uncertainty.
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