Global trade and recession

In many ways, the severest impact of the sub-prime induced financial market crisis was on global trade, which fell off a cliff. NYT has an excellent graphic that captures the steep decline in exports across the world over the last year and the slow rebound over June 2009. Interestingly, both the declines were steepest and the recovery (admittedly only a months data point) slowest for the developed economies (compared to the export-dependent emerging economies).



The US trade data for June too indicates pick-up in btoh exports and imports, though the deficit has widened.



Also green shoots in European economic landscape for the second quarter. After four consecutive quarters of contraction in output, both Germany and France have positive growth rates. However, domestic consumption dependent economies like Itlay, Spain, Ireland and Netherlands continue to struggle with contracting economies.



Asian economic data too has indicated that a slow recovery has taken hold, on the back of strong government spending.