argomento: News del mese - Diritto Internazionale e Comunitario

Articoli Correlati: WTO - medical goods - emergenza sanitaria Covid – 19

After the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, the WTO found itself concerned with different aspects relating to the medical goods market and its oscillations during this specific historical period. On April 3^rd, 2020, the WTO Secretariat published an information note on trade in medical goods in the context of tackling COVID-19, and subsequently, at the end of the 2020 and the beginning of 2021, it issued the update of the information note that was supposed to analyze the developments of said market during the first half of 2020. The new paper presents preliminary trade statistics from 97 economies and compares data from January to June 2020 to the same period in 2019. Having considered the specificity of medical needs during the pandemic period, the report also takes under consideration a special case study on face masks. Other kind of special demands related to the pandemic were also other products such as disinfectants, gloves, hand sanitizer, pulse oximeters, syringes, thermometers and ventilators. Global trade in these products grew by 29 per cent year-on-year. According to the update, the total world trade in general goods declined by 14 % in the first half of 2020 compared to the same time period in 2019, while imports and exports of medical goods increased by 16%.