Businesses Prefer Regional Trade as Tariffs and Protectionism Threaten Global Prospects

Due to customer demand and favorable economic conditions, businesses worldwide have growing confidence.But however confident they may be, many companies are beginning to shift toward doing business within their own regions due to uncertainty surrounding global trade, according to a new HSBC survey of over 8,500 companies.As protectionism becomes more of a focus for governments around the world, companies are beginning to worry about their prospects. Of those companies surveyed, 31 percent of those with negative outlooks cited tariffs and the U.S-China trade dispute as the main reason for their pessimism.As a result, many companies are shifting toward intra-regional trade over inter-regional trade. Regarding companies’ top targets for trade growth, there has been a drop in both European and North American companies that are targeting Asian companies.