The importance of trade’s contribution to global growth and prosperity cannot be underestimated, HSBC’s Regional Head of Commercial Banking, Asia Pacific, Mr. Paul Skelton, said.
“Asia’s position at the leading edge of technological and supply chain innovation gives the region a unique opportunity to benefit from this next wave of globalization,” he said.
Asia-Pacific’s share of global exports is forecast to rise from around one-third in 2015 to 46% in 2050. Western Europe’s share is expected to decline from 34% to 22%, and North America’s to fall from 11% to 9%.
Led by a burst of intra-Asian trade that will lift the region’s share of global exports to 27% by 2050 from 17% at present, the surge will mark a third wave of globalization.
The report identifies four “trade winds” that will drive opportunity for the business leaders of today and tomorrow: the march of industrialization and a shift to mass customization, plummeting transport and logistics costs, further liberalization of trade policy, and the evolution of more nimble business operating models.
Nimble networks of micro-multinationals that create their own specialized value chains will be at the core of a drive for prosperity that promises to take nations out of poverty and improve quality of life across the world, according to the report, which was commissioned by HSBC Commercial Banking and compiled by Oxford Economics.