Interesting post over at Crisis Talk, The World Bank Group, on searching for bright spots in trade.

According to Caroline Freund, the global trade rainbow comprises of:

Necessities:

• Medical equipment trade is thriving (such as catheters and pacemakers in the U.S. and MRI equipment and artificial body parts in Japan).
• Various foods items are up (bananas and meat in both nations, grains and rice in Japan).
• Tobacco is up over 100 percent in the U.S. and 30 percent in Japan. Vodka imports are up 37 percent in the U.S.

Innovations:

• Cell phone imports are up 24 percent in the U.S. and 12 percent in Japan. Proof that improved technology still sells—the new generation of smartphones are really cool.
• A number of chemicals are ahead in both countries. For example, heterocyclic compounds (a big category, $600m in February in the US) are up 48 percent in the US and 67 percent in Japan—these are used for a wide variety of things, such as drugs, pesticides, dyes and plastics.
• Wind-powered electric generating sets are up 18 percent in the United States.

According to Simeon Djankov (pictured), Chief Economist at the World Bank Group's Crisis Talk blog, of all the possible things the G20 Summit leaders could have done, this one would ease the crisis the most: a commitment to triple the amount of money the IMF has for lending to $750 billion.

The G20 has also committed about $250 billion to boost global trade.

See why Djankov thinks the IMF lending notion (there are doubts about the global trade boost) is a good idea here.