DHL launches its Global Trade Barometer
DHL has introduced a new early indicator for the current state and future development of global trade. The DHL Global Trade Barometer not only provides an outlook on future trade, but also on the prospects for the global economy. The indicator has been developed in cooperation between DHL and Accenture and will be published quarterly.
“In a world characterized by volatility and uncertainty, we are contributing to greater transparency and predictability – for the benefit of our customers, our business and society”, Tim Scharwath, CEO of DHL Global Forwarding, Freight said at a press event.
The DHL Global Trade Barometer is based on import and export data for a number of intermediate and early-cycle commodities that serve as the basis for further industrial production, e.g. brand labels for clothes, bumpers for cars or touch screens for mobile devices. Sources for the index are aggregated market data from air and containerized ocean freight in seven countries, which account for more than 75 percent of world trade. Using artificial intelligence and various statistical methods this data is compressed to a single index value, which is published on a global level and individually for the seven countries evaluated.
The index represents the weighted average of the current growth and the upcoming two months of global trade. An index value above 50 indicates a positive development; values below 50 point to a decline in world trade.
Tests with historical data have revealed a high correlation between the DHL Global Trade Barometer and real containerized trade, providing a three-month forward-looking estimate.
The DHL Global Trade Barometer for January 2018 indicates that global trade will continue to grow within the next three months. On its initial release, the index scored 64, which is slightly below the values calculated for previous months. That means that world trade is still considered to be in an expansive mode, but growth loses momentum. The decline is due to weakening prospects for Chinese and Japanese trade, which is only partially offset by improved prospects for India, South Korea and Great Britain.
In addition to the findings on world trade in general, the DHL Global Trade Barometer provides deep insights into specific issues, e.g. the main macroeconomic factors that are affecting trade trends or the countries and regions that are driving global trade. By breaking down the global supply chain, volume trends within industry sectors could be identified, pointing to outperforming and declining sectors.
The insights from the DHL Global Trade Barometer will help DHL customers to optimize their business processes, for example providing guidance for investment and supply chain decisions. Moreover, DHL itself will leverage the indicator to fine-tune its own resource planning for its international logistics operations.