Last winter we saw how short the path was from a local virus outbreak in Wuhan to a global health crisis. Covid-19 followed the same routes as tourists, labour and goods. The virus showed how closely interconnected and interdependent countries are. 2 See The Productivity J-Curve: How Intangibles Complement General Purpose Technologies Erik Brynjolfsson, Daniel Rock, and Chad Syverson NBER Working Paper No. 25148, https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_ papers/w25148/revisions/w25148.rev0.pdf  6  NORGES BANK  Chart 5 Growth in global trade has stalled Share of global GDP. Percent 30  30  Trade in goods Trade in services  25  25  20  20  15  15  10  10  5  5  0 1977  1983  1989  1995  2001  2007  2013  ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES 18 FEBRUARY 2021  0 2019  Sources: Refinitiv Datastream, WTO and Norges Bank  A rising number of countries have been integrated into world trade over the past decades (Chart 5). The gains have been substantial. Poverty has been reduced. Crossborder cooperation has enabled technology to advance faster than it would have done otherwise. Since the financial crisis, growth in global trade has stalled. While service exports have continued to rise, trade in goods as a share of global GDP has been more or less flat in recent years because a number of sources of growth in goods trade are drying up. Large countries such as China and India are now fully integrated into the global economy.
But history is full of stories of reformers who made progress, declared victory, and paused, only to find their accomplishments threatened or reversed. For the post-crisis reforms to be durable, we cannot rest on our laurels – we have to keep learning and adapting. CCPs should keep themselves central by again being part of the solution. Over the past two years, two episodes of extreme market stress caused by external factors have tested the system: first, a once-in-100 year pandemic and second, the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by Russia. We should use the lessons from those episodes to make central clearing stronger. Global Pandemic – Spring 2020 In early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic sparked a ‘flight to safety’ by investors, with considerable volatility across asset classes, including government bonds. We saw the biggest two-day price  Page 3  moves for some cleared products in the past decade. [1] Thankfully, the financial system entered the pandemic in a much stronger position than in 2008, with at least $ in additional collateral against over the counter (OTC) derivative exposures; [2] and a significant increase of central clearing in OTC markets. [3] CCPs in this period functioned as intended. Very significant and sudden changes in asset prices did not lead to counterparty credit risk – actual or anticipated. There were no major clearing member defaults during the pandemic, so clearing was not tested to the limit. But there was no panic about counterparty credit risk, no ructions in the interest rate swap markets.