Global economy faces two challenges

The world economy's performance in 2017 was significantly better than the previous year. According to the World Bank forecast, global economic growth is likely to reach 3.6 percent in 2017, as the economies of the European Union, the United States and Japan all showed clear signs of improvement in the third quarter with a growth rate of 2.5 percent, over 2 percent and nearly 2 percent, respectively.

Driven by the economic recovery of the developed countries, global trade and investment have entered a new active phase, and the World Trade Organization expects the growth rate of global trade to reach 3.2 percent in 2017. Based on the current situation, global trade growth will approach or exceed global economic growth, changing the five-year trend of trade growth lagging behind economic growth.

But even as the global economy shows all the signs of a full recovery, anti-globalization and trade protectionism remain the two major threats causing widespread concern and have the potential of damaging the development of the world economy and trade.