UNCTAD Press Conference: Trade and Development Report 2026

Good morning, good morning, and thank you very much for joining us for the launch of UNCTAD's Trade and Development Report 2026, the Geoeconomics of Development. We have with us today the acting Secretary General of UN Trade and Development, Mr. Pedro Manuel Moreno, and the head of the Macroeconomic and Development Policy Branch at UNCTAD, Anastasia Nesvetailova, and her team. So, with apologies for the very slight delay, thanking you who are in the room and joining us online, I give the floor to the Acting Secretary General, Mr. Moreno, so he can present today's report. The floor is yours. Thank you very much.

Good morning, everybody, and thank you for joining us for the launch of the Trade and Development Report 2026, titled The Geoeconomics of Development. which this year looks at the very significant shifts in the global economy and what that means for developing countries. I want to start by thanking Anastasia Nesvetailova and her team in the Division of Globalization and Development Strategies of UNCTAD, who produced this groundbreaking report. She will later take you in some detail through it. So why is this year's report significant? It is because we see a new global economy rapidly taking shape and analyze the consequences for developing countries of it. We see clear signals that the global economy is entering a new, a more strategic era, and also it has proven more resilient to shocks than expected. But it is slowing. Global growth is projected to reach 2.6% this year, down from 2.9% last year. while trade is expected to expand by about 4% in real terms. However, gains are extremely concentrated, and energy shocks and financial stability continue to put pressure on developing economies in the context of shrinking official development assistance. But a more important story lies beneath those figures. The trade and development report shows that economic growth is becoming more uneven and the gaps between developing regions are widening. Governments are no longer looking at trade, investment, technology, and critical resources only through the lens of economic growth. They are also considering issues of security and geopolitical power. Countries are using tariffs and investment rules to secure supply chains, protects strategic technologies, and builds domestic capacity. For major economies, this is part of an increasing economic security. For smaller and developing economies, it can look very different. Some forces now driving the global economy are making it harder for developing countries to move into higher value activities. And here, artificial intelligence is the clear example. We said that also in the, uh, recently launched World Investment Report, AI is becoming a major source of growth in trade and in, and in investment. It is driving the demand for chips, servers, data infrastructure, advanced services, and critical minerals, but the gains, again, are highly concentrated. The technology, capital, and skills needed to compete in this new economy are held by a very small number of actors. For many developing economies, there is a real risk of being left behind, supplying minerals and other inputs, buying technology, but capturing little of its value at home. For example, Africa mines most of the world's cobalt, which is a strategic mineral at the intersection of technology, energy, and geopolitics. 73% of that mineral is held by just one country, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but less than 1% of value of the global green supply chain stays in Africa. This is a clear example of how geopolitics is increasingly shaping the prospects for development of many countries. What outcome finally prevails will depend, once again, on policy. The same is true of the wider trading system. However, the report also points to regions and developing economies that have successfully overcome these challenges. And here, Asia stands out. Asian economies have shown remarkable resilience, and in many cases, strong economic growth despite a difficult global environment. They are adapting quickly to changes in technology, trade, and investment. They are deepening regional supply chains, attracting investment, and diversifying their economy. And this matters beyond Asia itself. It shows that globalization is changing, shaped by geopolitics, But developing economies can still grow when they build productive capacity, invest in capabilities, and connect more closely to regional markets or trading groups. Change is not being driven only by the largest economies. Rising economies of the global south are increasingly becoming anchors of regional and sectoral economic integration. They are expanding trades and investment with neighbors, building digital infrastructure, developing new financial and technological links, and creating markets that are less dependent on the traditional centers of the global economy. The report provides specific examples from India, Brazil, Nigeria, and Turkey, for example, which I would encourage you to explore. The message from UMDAT is clear. The global south is not simply responding to this new global economy. It is also increasingly shaping it. Countries are not powerless. They can successfully navigate the challenges of this new geo-economy, which is very challenging. They can build capacities over time. They can cooperate regionally to create larger markets, more partnerships, and stronger production networks. And they can use South-South cooperation to share technology, infrastructure, and expertise. International policies matter too. For developing countries to be able to benefit from a global economy, they need policy space and predictable trade rules in a multilateral trading system that keeps non-discrimination and spatial and differential treatment at its core. Developing countries need investment and finance to support all these long-term structural change. Asia's example shows that this is possible. The rise of other economies across the global south suggests that the map of economic opportunity is also changing. But we warn that this new global economy can deepen existing divides. Developing countries need support to diversify their economies build productive capacity, and capture more value from what they produce to ensure development for their countries and their citizens. As you know, UNGCT has announced this week that 3.7 billion people now live in countries spending more on debt than they spend on health or education. which is, by the way, 300 million more, 300 million more than in 2025. This report points to policies and measures that developing countries must consider in a context of geoeconomic pressures, energy shocks, and financial stability, which is affecting them severely, as well as declining ODA, which fell by 7% for a third consecutive year. So a more strategic global economy is rapidly taking shape. Our challenge is to make sure it is not a more unequal one. Thank you, and I will give the floor to Anastasia.

Thank you, ASD. Good morning. The question at the heart of our report is a simple one: Can poorer countries still progress even as the rules of globalization are being rewritten? For decades, the answer assumed getting the policies right. Structural transformation was key to development. Manufacturing drove that transformation, while exports opened the door to international integration and growth. Today, all three of these are faltering. Manufacturing is diminishing as a driver of growth. Merchandise trade is slowing. Trade in services, on the other hand, continues to gain momentum. Investment in intangible capital is outpacing investment in physical and tangible assets. This is reshaping the structure of global value chains. The impact of these shifts on development is going to be long lasting. Production at value capture no longer follows production. Production itself is becoming more and more specialized. Only a fraction of investment by companies is now driven by traditional concerns such as low labor costs. Instead, value is moving into strategic sectors, semiconductors, artificial intelligence, clean energy, advanced computing, where the barriers to entry are high and rising. For this report, we traced the value inside one of the most advanced AI servers in the market. In a traditional manufacturing, workers take around 50% to 60% of the value they help create. In this particular AI value chain, they receive less than 15. Four groups of suppliers capture 82% of profit, and most developing economies contribute only raw materials amounting to less than 1% of the final value of the server at best. The structure of trade is shifting too. Trade is not slowing, nor is it being abandoned, but the global trade map is being redrawn as old corridors give way to new ones. This creates fresh openings for many developing countries. For example, three fastest growing export corridors today center in the global south. Trade is expanding between Africa and Europe, between developing Asia and Europe, and within Africa itself. But sustained success requires collective effort to avoid fragmentation and careful coordination across trade, finance, and digital policies. Power and security have always shaped the global economy. Globalization was never really purely an economic process, but a political economy one. What has changed is the premise beneath it. The old promise of market-led globalization, that openness alone would spread prosperity, no longer holds. Access is now allocated strategically, often to those already equipped to seize it. We see this across every segment of trade, except the most standardized manufactured goods. Against this challenging context, one region does stand out. Even as the economy slows, Asia will contribute 60% of global growth this year. The fastest expanding economies include China, India, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. On income per capita, no other developing economies have matched the convergence rate of China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam. For the vast majority of developing countries, that convergence has receded since the mid-2010s. Why has Asia fared better? Not through good fortune and not through openness alone. Malaysia's trajectory is instructive. Five decades of sustained industrial policy, moving step by step up the electronics value chain. And where national capabilities reach their limits, Asian economies have deepened regional integration, sustaining it even in the face of geopolitical and economic risks. Here lies the central finding of the report. Asia's success is not a template that can be readily transferred. It rests on an alignment of scale, timing, accumulated capability built over decades. Yet under due economic pressures, even successful cases like Malaysia face a ceiling. The highest value activities, chip design, advanced fabrication, stay in the hands of a few established firms, impeding further progress. So the lesson is not simply to open up or to copy what Asia has done. It is that development has to be built deliberately, and that there is now a real window to do this. Rising economies of the global south, including Brazil, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, as well as others, are embarking on exactly these endeavors through their sectoral strategies, trade diversification, and regional initiatives. Across Africa, a single payment system now links 42 currencies, so the trade need not run through a distant financial center. In Southeast Asia, eight countries have joined their payment system so that people can pay directly in local money across borders. As chair of ASEAN, Indonesia used this role to build new regional rules on the digital and ocean economies. These are just a few practical steps that give countries more room to maneuver in a difficult context. The message of the report is, therefore, a hopeful one. Despite the geo-economic challenges, a country's place in the world economy today is not fixed. It can be built through steady industrial strategy, sectoral priorities, investment in skills and capabilities, and through trade and financial cooperation among developing countries themselves. I would like to thank my team and our colleagues responsible for the timely production and publication of this report for their hard work on the TDR. The lead authors of the chapters and the writing teams are in the room, and we can address the specific questions or queries together. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. We now open the floor for questions, and please go ahead, Reuters.

Good morning. Thank you. It's Olivier Le Poitve from Reuters. Just really interested in what you're saying there about, you know, the AI boom, but how it's highly concentrated. In comparison, you know, with other moments in history where we've had these huge kind of technological changes, I mean, are we going to see AI drive a much bigger gap than we've seen before in terms of inequality, essentially, with some states who are far advanced and able to have the kind of capital to build data centers, to be able to get hold of semiconductors, et cetera, and then everybody else who's left behind. And then second part is, you know, you said at the end there that... your report has a hopeful note that there's this opportunity in space for developing countries to little by little invest and grow and climb up the value chain. But I mean, obviously, the AI boom is happening now at a rapid pace. So is there a risk that they're just going to be totally left behind in the next five to 10 years? Thank you.

Thank you, Anastasia. Perhaps you would like to take the question.

Thank you very much, Sylvie. AI boom in the report, we dedicate some time to this analysis. As all booms, it takes time to embed the financial and economic gains of a new technology, and clearly this is a very profound and revolutionary structural change to, if you want, world capitalism. We're yet to see whether the current enthusiasm And the earnings, not profits, of AI companies and AI sector overall are to translate into real productivity gains, sustained growth, employment, and even household consumptions. At the moment, we do put warnings across all these signs, suggesting that should AI boom or the companies themselves falter or face difficulties or encounter financial instability, trade and investment boom are projected to slow. Usually with financial booms, you see the big lessons long afterwards. It's very difficult to predict it in time precisely at which shape the eventual implosion, if you want, will take place. Yes, the overall, it's not just about AI. The technological change is quite revolutionary. It goes through new materials being produced, new types of employment, digital technologies, clearly new capital, and the role that finance and technology plays in that is very profound. We want to progressively deepening developmental gap. so that the divergence that we already observe even within the Global South risks being even more deeper. In order to avoid that, or at least in order to address that, developing countries need to embark on a set of integration efforts, because one clear lesson from all of this is that autonomy and isolation are not the way forward. You will be completely marginalized if you decide to not pursue integration strategies or development paths.

Yes, please go ahead at the back of the room. You can name your media.

I have a question about the impact of the Middle East crisis and the energy shock on the global economy. And what are the expectations If this crisis continues for several more months, and if you have some details about the situation in the Gulf states, thank you.

Thank you very much. Yes, we do dedicate several sections in Chapter 1 specifically to the effects of the shock. We observe that the uncertainty and volatility does continue to reverberate, however, due to underlying changes in the economy. So far, the region and world economy have been quite resilient to withstand the oil shock. The paradox is that it's one of the most large-scale supply disruptions, but so far oil prices, although they are elevated, they are not projected to go too high beyond this year, although all our projections are quite short-term and need to be taken with a pinch of salt. The regional impact is also diverse in the sense that some economies in the region have made had been making efforts to diversify their economic structures away from fossil fuels and into new industries or sectors, for example, United Arab Emirates, also Saudi Arabia. It did help that other regions in the global south continued to trade and invest. and the role of regional leaders such as India, Indonesia, the rising powers, and of course China, are fundamental to so far sustained success in trade. But volatility remains, and in particular, developing countries are affected by financial fears. We see that capital flows have become much more volatile in light of the shock, and their capital volatility is now twice as high as it was before the beginning of the conflict.

Thank you very much. We have a question online, which I will read out because there is trouble connecting. It's from a colleague, a journalist based in Africa. Fifteen percent of intra-Africa trade is partly payment barriers. PAPSS connecting 42 currencies is ambitious, but your box, so he has read the report, says trade financing in local currency remains nascent. What's missing? Is it central clearing or FX liquidity to get from payments to actual trade finance?

This is a fantastic question because it's complex. A lot of things are missing. The institutional connections, the depth of capital markets, I think also the credibility of the payment system itself and the eco-connections that will connect businesses, individuals, consumers to new initiatives. We do know that these are remarkable ideas and projects that now go beyond trade integration. But financial integration requires much more effort, consolidated and bottom up. We also understand that, of course, there is, it's very difficult to rely purely on market-driven initiatives because the private sector has built its own habits and ways of doing business over decades. They do rely on, for example, dollar-based network and global financial markets. So the role of the state and interstate coordination in supporting these initiatives is key.

Thank you very much. There is a question from Jamie Keaton, AP. Let's see if we can open the floor for him and he can formulate the question himself.

Thank you very much, Amelia. And just nice to see you all. Thank you for coming to present. I wanted to just take up a comment by Mr. Moreno about the situation in developing countries in Africa, in particular, you mentioned the DRC as a major source of resources. I wanted to just try to get your outlook as to how can these development rates, how can the growth rates be better equalized in developing countries? What can be done specifically to ensure that the growth in the global economy is fairly distributed to countries in the developing world? Thanks.

Thank you very much. I think it's for both of you, but Anastasia, go ahead.

As I mentioned in my remarks, the regions outside of Asia are in fact together in being quite late or below convergence rate with the advanced economies. At the same time, even China, the champion of growth and the motor for growth for developing countries, at the moment is only at around 20% of GDP per capita of the level of the United States. So the challenge is vast, and you can say that the equality of that growth is key, but growth is being the operative word here. The world economy has slowed down compared to its pre-pandemic averages, and this deceleration is a particular challenge to developing countries. They do need global growth. They do need big markets and access to big markets to be able to integrate and export and pursue structural transformation. But for combination of both technological, geoeconomic, and policy reasons, these access to markets is now being questioned or is getting more and more uncertain. The alternative is to pursue South-South, North-South, and triangular cooperation with much more effort, dedication, understanding that the dynamics and structure of trade have changed. and it requires different sets of policy effort and policy attention. Perhaps they should be much more targeted and specific to the context of developing countries, in particular for our commodity exporters. I noticed you asked about Democratic Republic of the Congo. For our commodity exporters, one of the challenges is how to embed the statistical growth that can be generated out of commodity exports and the big commodity cycle. um, into real developmental gains whilst avoiding the resource curse and now the financial curse, the curse of financialization, when gains, employment and revenues go into very isolated sectors that do not employ many people.

In some sectors, like the, uh, critical minerals that you mentioned in, in your question and the example that, uh, I gave in the, in the introduction, it's also important to, uh, to develop policies and support to developing countries, to producing countries that generate local value, uh, in, in national value chains so that they, uh, so that they can generate, uh, more, more gains from what they produce and they can produce more inputs, uh, midstream and downstream the value chain of, uh, of, in this case, the, the critical minerals, other things as usual, infrastructure, skills, financing, uh, I think that depending of the sector that we are talking about, we have to look at different targeted approaches to see how to support developing countries in thriving.

Thank you very much. Next, there is a question from John Saracostas, France, Van Cat. We open the mic for him, please.

Can you hear me there? Good morning, can you hear me? Hello.

Yes, we can, John. Yes, we can.

Oh, good, Thank you, Amelia. Yes, I've got two questions. Thank you. It's also, I'm asking a question for the Lancet as well. You mentioned 3.7 billion people. are living in countries that are spending more on debt than on health and education. You mentioned an extra 300 million were added. In which countries did this extra 300 million get added? And my second question is concerning artificial intelligence. What are the scenarios of UNCTAD on possible bubble, given that the P2E ratio is more than 140, which is one of the highest since the dot-com bust in the early 2000s? And what are the implications for financial stability and the spillover effects for pension funds, etc? Thank you.

Anastasia, maybe you can take the question and then we can... Just to say that the figures on debt have been released by us earlier this week. They're online, readily available, but I yield the question to you.

I think I will go with the AI question. It was Charles Kindleberger, the classic of financial history, who said that financial crises is always easy to recognize but very difficult to predict. We usually have a lot of insight post-factum. So with our AI analysis, we do recognize that at the moment, AI valuations, concentration, the exposure to the financial sector, a lot of indicators of financial euphoria in the market are higher, sometimes times higher than they were in 2008. in 2001 or 2000 around dot-com, and around 1929 stock market crash. So all these historical echoes are very worrying. On the one hand, we know that every huge productive and technological revolution is paralleled by a financial euphoria. It's inevitable. It has happened through centuries. However, because this particular technology is so fundamentally new, we lack knowledge as to how it can be digested by the economic system, households, government, society internationally. We are only beginning to understand the risks that it can generate. I think our analysis is very cautious and quite... pessimistic, we do want that AI race is very young, but it's already too big to fail in a sense that the exposure of key companies, the financial sector, financial institutions to these new opportunities, companies and financial instruments is far too high. The lack of transparency and the role of debt in these connections is very central, and from 2008 we know that it didn't end up very well.

Sorry. Thank you very much. I think we have a question from Isabel Saco from EFE. Please open the mic.

Good morning. Do you hear me?

Yes, perfectly. Go ahead, please.

Yes, thank you. Yes, good morning. Yes, Mr. Moreno, you have warned that there is a real risk that in the context where technology, capital, and skilled people are concentrated in a small group of countries, the global south will be once again left behind. So in that context, I would like to ask, this, Latin America's position in this new scenario, and what should it do to avoid being left behind again?

Thank you. I think we'll get back to you, Isabel, on the specific data for Latin America and the Caribbean. I don't have the breakdown here with me. So we'll get back to you with the question.

Isabel, yes, from what I remember off the top of my head without the text, across all our measured indicators, Latin America is unfortunately lagging behind in terms of integration progress, in terms of trade integration, although the recent financial payment systems led by Brazil are encouraging. So we investigated the increase in new trade corridors, i.e. export links between continents and between particular groups of countries. And whilst we see some increases between, for example, Europe, Asia, within Africa, between Europe and Africa, the corridors involving Latin American countries are either very slow to develop or in fact diminishing. So for example, one of the corridors we have traced is between Latin America and Africa, and that has actually shrunk in the past few years. So the challenge as well as potential is vast, but the structural conditions and problems facing these countries are long known. It's the underperformance of value chain, and hence difficulties of much more progressive integration, reliance on commodity exports and so far very fragmented ability to address the commodity and financial curse of resource-dependent economy.

Thank you very much. I don't think there are any further questions. I don't see any. Jamie again, sorry. Jamie again, AP. I had not seen that. I apologize.

I had a follow-up. I had a little trouble getting the actual report. A dear colleague was very kind to send it to me, and I'm looking at some of the major basic findings. What I don't quite understand is a lot of the stuff that you say in here is pretty well known and pretty established. So, I mean, in terms of the AI and the Middle East situation and various other inputs on the global economy. If you had to bring it in the 2.6% rate of growth that you mentioned globally and the nearly 4% we went to WTO yesterday, said 3.9% was their projection for this year. I guess what I'm just trying to find out is what specifically are you, what is the great revelation in this trade and development report that we haven't seen before? Because it seems like like a lot of rehash, if I can say that very bluntly, based on what we've known. Is there anything like a silver bullet here in your report that really is breaking new ground? Thank you so much.

Thank you. We are a United Nations trade and development body, and I think the biggest lesson from this report is that despite volatility, despite geoeconomic fears, and despite geostrategic competition, Trade is not slowing. Its globalization is not reversing. But they are being rewired and remapped through new connections. These connections might be favoring those in the middle, where relationships are now getting much more intense. Some trade weights are disappearing from earlier huge concentrated nodes. But unfortunately, it fares very badly for countries and regions on the margins of trade connections. All this poses huge historical challenges to developing countries, which were addressed in the conceptual chapter. To the extent that these are not new challenges, you are absolutely right. Development has been a long-term process, and only very few selected countries have really integrated or advanced along their progress. But for the majority of them, the challenge is still very much there.

Thank you very much. We have a question from the Philippines, Bless Ocario from Business Mirror. Please go ahead. Thank you.

Good afternoon. I'm Bless Ocario from Business Mirror. I just wanted to ask, since Otag projected a 4 percent global trade growth this year, and it was also mentioned that most Asian economies are resilient, so I would just like to ask more specifically about the Philippines. How much is the country expected to contribute to the 4 percent global trade growth? And Sorry for the double-barreled question, but what is your outlook for the Philippines' trade performance for the rest of 2026, particularly because there is El Nino risk and its potential impact on agricultural production and exports? Thank you.

Thank you very much for the question. I know that the Philippines has made some enormous effort in delivering much more data to international institutions, so our sister organization, WIPO, has just included it in its intangible capital index, so congratulations on that. And that shows just how fast the economy is adapting to the new environment. I think broadly Asia has increased its contribution this particular year to global growth, but contribution of particular countries If you are interested, we will get back to you with a specific number. At the moment, we have it by region only and by subregion. Climate change is the greatest challenge facing humanity. One lesson from this year is that climate resilience and climate security is the energy transition. So the economies that have diversified their energy sources are withstanding the current energy shock much better. with low inflation, uh, transmission mechanisms, and therefore, uh, more mediated impact on cons- consumption and investment than those who are relying on fossil fuels.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much to all who attended the press conference. We need to close here. The spokespersons, of course, and the staff remain at your disposal for any follow-up questions. The report and all the content associated with it will be available online through our website. We have made an effort to make it available not only in UN official languages, but also in Swahili and Urdu. and Hindi and Indonesian, so to make sure that it reaches developing countries who are at the heart of what we do. Thank you very much, and we hope to hear from you soon. Thank you.