PARIS, 09 August. - (ANA) - Claims that globalisation is in retreat have gained traction in recent years. Yet new OECD data tell a more nuanced story: global production networks are not breaking down, they are adapting. This blog explores what is changing in global value chains and what is not.

 

The COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitical tensions and diverging political priorities have fuelled claims that globalisation is in retreat. Terms like reshoring, friendshoring and nearshoring have entered the mainstream policy vocabulary, and questions about the resilience of global supply chains have moved up the agenda. Yet the latest OECD Trade in Value Added (TiVA) data tell a more nuanced story. Global production networks are not in decline, they are adapting.

 

 

 

 

A key indicator of global integration is the foreign value-added content of exports: the share of foreign inputs embodied in a country’s exports. Higher values indicate stronger integration into upstream global value chains and greater reliance on international sourcing.  

 

While the COVID-19 pandemic was a major disruption, its effects on globalisation were largely transient. By 2022, the foreign value-added share of exports across OECD economies had not only recovered but reached its highest level since 1995, at around 30.4%. Projections for 2023-24 indicate that global integration has stabilised at these historically high levels.

 

 

 

 

While domestic inputs are increasingly being substituted in favour of foreign inputs, regional value chains are also strengthening. Several economies, including Greece, Belgium, and France, recorded increases of around 3 percentage points in the European share of value added embodied in their exports. Regional sourcing has also strengthened within Asia, with Japan and Korea increasing their reliance on East and Southeast Asian inputs.  

 

However, this is not simply a story of regionalisation. European economies such as Slovenia, the Slovak Republic and Hungary have increased their reliance on Asian inputs, Mexico, Colombia and New Zealand have followed a similar pattern. Global supply chains are far from retreating into regional blocs. They remain globally connected, even as firms adjust sourcing strategies to mitigate risk.   

 

Globalisation is not in retreat; it is being reconfigured. Regional ties have strengthened, but production networks remain firmly global. - (ANA) -

 

AB/ANA/09 August 2026 - - -