This year's outlook on services trade uncertain amid Covid-19: WTO

WTO's Services Trade Barometer rose sharply to 104.7 during Oct-Dec 2020, higher than the baseline value of 100 and well above the low of 91.2 seen earlier due to the economic fallout of the pandemic

Even as global services trade picked up in the last quarter of 2020, outlook for the current year remains uncertain due to uneven distribution of vaccines and the emergence of new strains of Covid-19, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has said.

WTO’s Services Trade Barometer (STB) rose sharply to 104.7 during October-December 2020, higher than the baseline value of 100 and well above the low of 91.2 seen earlier due to the economic fallout of the pandemic.

STB combines six component indices — global financial services transactions; indices for container port throughput; construction; global services Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI); passenger air transport;