Sluggish outlook for global trade

DESPITE leading indicators suggesting that the global economic recovery will strengthen in the second half of the year, it may not be all good news for trade-dependent economies such as Malaysia.

Several economists have cast doubts that global trade would pick up strongly amid an improving, but uneven, recovery, in the final six months of 2014. Overall demand from major importing nations such as the United States and those in Europe, they note, is expected to grow sluggishly.