The Doha Ministerial Conference, 2001

In 2001 global production and trade recorded their weakest performance in more than a decade. The fall in IT investment and the run-down of inventories added to the weakening of consumption. As the IT sector had a larger share in international trade (15%) than in global output (5%) trade suffered more as a result of the bursting of the IT ‘bubble’ than did output. International transaction costs also rose due, in large part, to the fallout from the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, which further dented confidence in the growth dividends of globalized markets.