The global credit crisis has driven up the cost of financing trade shipments sharply, prompting the World Trade Organisation to convene a summit to counter the threat to international commerce.

Although officials stress that traders have not been cut off from credit as yet, there has been a rapid increase in credit charges in recent months, particularly involving countries such as Brazil and Russia. One trade official said that the cost of trade finance, usually quite close to interbank interest rates, had risen to 300 basis points above, in some cases.