World trade is on track to grow at its slowest rate since the aftermath of the financial crisis, according to researchers, underlining the fragility of the global economic recovery.

After contracting in the first six months of this year the volume of global merchandise trade grew 0.7 per cent in the three months to the end of September compared with the same quarter last year, according to figures compiled by the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis, keeper of the monthly World Trade Monitor.

The low figure highlights a perplexing issue for economists: after decades of expansion at twice the rate of the global economy, world trade has slowed in recent years, leading some to proclaim the end of an era of “hyperglobalisation” fed by the rise of China and other emerging economies.

Analysts at Capital Economics said the “frail” trade figures were largely the result of the “continued lacklustre performance of emerging economies”.

“However, we don’t think this is an early sign of a widespread downturn in the global economy,” they wrote in a note to clients.

The global pattern of trade had also been depressed by currency movements, they said. While a weak euro had helped eurozone exports rise steadily in volume terms, the strong dollar continued to hinder US exports. That was a pattern, the Capital Economics analysts said, that was likely to continue.

This year, the World Trade Organisation expects trade growth of 2.8 per cent versus the International Monetary Fund’s expected 3.1 per cent growth in the global economy.

However, the latest data, released on Tuesday, point to an even grimmer year than the one forecast by the WTO. If the trend in the first nine months of this year continues, 2015 would be by far the worst year for trade since a collapse in trading volumes during 2009 as the global economy ground to a halt in the wake of the financial crisis.

The signs for the final quarter are worrying.

The US Department of Commerce has said that the value of both exports and imports into the world’s biggest consumer economy were down in October from the same month in 2014, following what has been a grim pattern for the year so far.

This month, Chinese authorities said exports from the world’s biggest trading economy were down 6.9 per cent in October from a year earlier while imports fell 18.8 per cent.

China’s example shows how the slowdown in trade this year has caught many governments by surprise. The ruling Communist party set a target of 6 per cent growth in trade for 2015 at the beginning of this year. But the country’s total trade has now fallen just over 8 per cent in the first 10 months of 2015 compared with the same period a year earlier.

Some economists remain bullish about the road ahead, particularly over the longer term.

In a report released on Tuesday, HSBC and Oxford Economics said they expected the value of global exports to quadruple to $68.5tn by 2050 thanks to the world entering what they called a “third phase of globalisation”.