In a recent speech, Hyun Song Shin, Head of Research at the BIS, discussed - What is behind the recent slowdown? The speech focused on the weakening of global value chains (GVCs) in manufactured goods. The manufacturing sector is critical, since it accounts for 70% of global merchandise trade:
"During the heyday of globalisation in the late 1980s and 1990s, trade grew at twice the pace of GDP. In turn, trade growth in manufactured goods was driven by the growing importance of multinational firms and the development of GVCs that knit together the production activity