UN experts predicted new challenges for the global economy in the first quarter of 2021.

The main fear of the authors is connected to the next slowdown in global trade due to new restrictions in connection with the coronavirus pandemic. The decline in the first three months of the year, according to the UN forecast, will amount to 1.5 percent in trade in goods and 7 percent in trade in services.

It is trade in services that has a crucial negative influence on the world economy, the authors note, while trade in goods is gradually recovering. In the fourth quarter of 2020, its volume increased by 8 percent (after falling by 15 percent in the first half). In Southeast Asia, growth in the last three months of the year was 12 percent.