According to the latest trade statistics from the WTO (released on April 17) global trade is expeccted to slow from 8.5% in 2007 to only 4.5% in 2008. Meanwhile, according to the IMF, last year, global GDP rose by 4.9% and the projection for 2008 is 3.7% growth, followed by 3.8% in 2009. They further advised that, “The global expansion is losing speed in the face of a major financial crisis.” Read More

Brazil is looking more positive than ever. S&P has upgraded that country’s status to “investment grade.” Inflation has been less than 10% for most of the previous decade and the government currently holds 200+ billion USD in foreign currency reserve. However GDP growth has only been 4.5% (significantly lower than countries like Russia, China, and India). This is likely because Brazil has not seen the same volume of foreign investment as countries like China and India.
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In India some analysts predict that the slowdown in the US may lead to an increase of trade between India and South America and Africa. Trade between India and those continents increased 30% or more from April 2007 to December 2007, but still only accounts for 11% of exports.
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Russia may not see much of a downturn either. Outside of a few niche markets they do not heavily depend on the US for imports or exports. Read More

Of course there are many other factors which will determine where trade and economies actually slow.