The Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues to take on a more worrying hue as the bombings have increased in recent days, leaving behind numerous casualties that has surpassed the barrier of belief. Meanwhile, the U.S., in turn, is intensifying pressure on Israel to halt or at least modify its offensive into enemy territory.
This, as we already know, has seriously affected international logistics. The violence has even reached sea routes such as the Red Sea, after rebel guerrillas attacked some boats leaving both material and human losses a few weeks ago.
The Israel’s conflict poses serious obstacles to international trade.
In the face of the escalation of the Israel’s conflict, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has already come to the public arena to express its concerns regarding how the current situation with Palestine could further aggravate the dismal outlook in the logistics industry, which requires routes such as those of the Red Sea. It was precisely Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director general of the organization, who commented on her desire for both countries to be able to resolve their differences quickly. In addition, he warned that, if this conflict spreads to the rest of the region, there will be an unprecedented negative impact on trade structures that are already quite weakened since the beginning of the war. Stating in his own words the following:
“We hope this will end soon and be contained. Our biggest fear is that it will spread, because then it will have a really big impact on trade. Everyone is on tenterhooks and hoping for the best.”
The current head of the WHO was in Morocco for meetings with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The objective was to address in more depth the various aspects that surround the conflict between Israel and Palestine, from the humanitarian and economic approach, taking as an example the collateral effects of the increase in interest rates and the growing tension in the real estate market, among other issues that in addition to the logistics industry, also affect world trade in general.
First aftermath of the armed conflict
The logistics industry has already begun to perceive the first consequences after the beginning of the armed conflict, with a reduction in the growth forecasts for international economic development in the shipment of goods during the current year, due to factors such as imminent inflation and the other obstacles already mentioned. In fact, the WTO already anticipates that the volume of trade in different goods will only increase by 0.8% from the initial 1.7% that was expected just before the tense international situation emerged.
For next year, the forecast for the increase in trade between countries would be 3.3%, which shows that Israel’s conflict with Palestine would continue to have adverse effects, especially on the shipping industry.
Sources:
El conflicto entre Israel y Hamás amenaza al comercio mundial, advierte la OMC. Expansion
Organización Mundial del Comercio advierte de gran impacto si se agrava conflicto Israel-Hamás.El Economista
OMC advierte que guerra entre Israel y Hamas podría impactar crecimiento mundial. Yahoo Finanzas
