Economics Perspective

The Fourth Quarter 2025 International Trade Statistics Report, which is focused on the slowdown of global trade developments among G20 countries in its final quarter of 2025, has mixed results in G20 economies’ merchandise trade but has seen modest growth in service trade. In the fourth quarter of 2025, G20 nations’ merchandise trade had mixed results, as G20 merchandise exports increased by only 0.9% and G20 merchandise imports decreased by only 0.5% when comparing quarterly exports and imports of the third quarter to the fourth quarter of 2025.

The European Commission and EU member states, on the one hand, and the UK Competition and Markets Authority, on the other hand, to work together in relation to antitrust and merger investigations. Both parties will share information about significant antitrust and merger investigations and will coordinate their enforcement efforts to ensure consistent outcomes. The protection of confidential information is one of the main aspects of the agreement.

The World Bank Group has also assisted countries in developing long-term, coordinated strategies, including supporting reforms in Ghana to create a national cybersecurity authority and improve its ability to respond to security incidents, allowing the country to be viewed as a regional leader. In addition, the World Bank Group’s investments in the Philippines are seeking to increase the resilience of broadband infrastructure by supporting early identification of threats and providing faster response time.

Emissions from drained peatlands rose slightly in Southeast Asia, though uncertainties remain in data estimates. Feeding a projected global population of nearly 10 billion by 2050 without sharply increasing emissions presents a critical challenge. Due to staple crops being the building blocks of food security, cultural identity, and livelihoods, replacing these crops is not an option that either makes sense or is desirable. Changes in agricultural practices will be the viable means of advancing. For instance, with rice, mitigation of methane emissions can occur through alternating the permitting of wet and dry periods instead of flooding. Crop residue management (composting or using straw as animal feed) can also contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by not burning or incinerating waste products resulting from rice productivity.

The percentage of people living in extreme poverty in rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa increased dramatically from 33 percent in 2013 to 53 percent as of 2023. The percentage of the world’s total poor who reside in urban areas of Africa has more than doubled since 2013, despite urban areas of Africa comprising a small proportion of the global population. There has been a significant change in terms of who makes up the population that falls below the poverty line today. More than half (or 46%) of those living in extreme poverty today are less than 15 years of age. This means over 50% of all people living in extreme poverty are children. Despite overall decreases in poverty rates for all age groups, there has been less of a decrease when it comes to youth (age 15 to 24) than with adults (over age 25).

According to IMF analysis, the stock and bond returns have been trending in the same way, mainly on acute selloffs, since early 2020. Rather than bonds covering the losses of equity, the two asset classes have sometimes declined in tandem, eliminating the diversification advantages. It seems that the shift started towards the end of 2019 and accelerated with the supply shocks prompted by the pandemic, which created global inflation. Statistics provided by the IMF indicate the presence of a structural break. In the pre-pandemic past, the correlation between equities and government bonds rolled negatively in the majority of cases. In 2020, the trend of the correlations was positive and often had a positive value.

The World Bank Group has focused on five key industries in which there is great potential for creating employment opportunities: the energy and infrastructure sector, agriculture and agribusiness, health care, tourism, and manufacturing. Each of these sectors is interconnected with the other and supports the creation and development of many job opportunities and a broad-based development strategy. The two most important things that drive our economy are energy and the infrastructure necessary to transport energy to people so that they can be connected to the market and provide productivity to their daily lives.

In a world long dominated by the financial tides of the US dollar, a new story is unfolding, driven not by a grand, planned design but by an unexpected external force: the tariff policies of Donald Trump. Trump's renewed presidency saw him sign an executive order in early 2025, first imposing tariffs on imports from China, then escalating to a "universal" tariff on nearly all imports. But the most pointed attacks were reserved for the BRICS bloc and their partners.