According to the freshly released HSBC Trade Connections, HSBC’s new quarterly global forecast, Malta’s trade volumes will grow by 105% in the next 15 years to the end of 2025. The report predicts that Malta will remain important as a core trading route between Europe and North Africa, and increasingly to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Canada and Russia.
HSBC Trade Connections predicts that world trade volumes will grow by 73% by 2025. The report predicts that despite the current economic climate and a partner survey of international traders showing a downturn in confidence in the short term, trade will grow by 2% year-on-year until 2015. This is a volume increase of approximately 8% with international trade activity growing, on average, by just under $1trillion a year between now and 2015.
Companies are being urged to find the right support to capitalise on the opportunities presented by expansion in growing and developing markets, and to mitigate the short-term risks of doing business during the next five years, by HSBC, the leading bank for international business.
Launched at a recent HSBC Trade Summit in Hamburg, HSBC Trade Connections is the first comprehensive exploration of the future opportunities for businesses operating internationally, combining trade data from around the world with lead indicators of world trade and macro-economic trend information.
The HSBC Trade Confidence Index – the largest survey of international traders globally – released alongside the forecast - finds that despite a dip in global trade confidence, the majority of respondents (84 per cent) anticipate either an increase in international trade, or consistent levels of international business activity, over the next six months. Businesses in Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE are particularly optimistic about the immediate future, showing a positive uplift in confidence on the first half of 2011.
Alan Richards, HSBC Malta Chief Executive Officer said: “Companies wishing to take advantage of the opportunities international markets offer must have the right strategic partners in place to be successful. These companies also need specialist Trade and Supply Chain expertise and we are working with Maltese businesses to support them at every stage of the supply chain to provide end-to-end financial support that benefits both them and their suppliers.”
HSBC Trade Connections predicts that Egypt, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, China and Brazil will be the international powerhouses that drive world trade growth in this period. Egypt is predicted to experience the fastest growth in international trade values – albeit from a low base – of 185% by 2025. This is being driven partly by the country’s redevelopment following the Arab Spring of 2011 but also because other countries around the world are seeing it as a gateway to the Middle East. China’s bounce-back from the 2009 collapse in world trade was phenomenal and as a nation, China rose from accounting for 8.4% of world trade in 2009 to 10.9% of world trade in 2010. The forecast predicts China’s share of world trade will reach 13% by 2025 overtaking the US as the top trading nation, driven both by commodities trading and by an increase in manufacturing in China.