Global Enabling Trade Report 2008

Launch date - 18 June

International trade plays a key role in economic development, but there remain many obstacles to realizing its potential. Trade barriers extend beyond the tariffs and quotas traditionally considered, to factors such as border administration, infrastructure, and the domestic business environment.

The Global Enabling Trade Report is dedicated to measuring and analysing the factors enabling trade in national economies around the world. The Report includes the most updated and recent data, rankings and analysis of the factors enabling trade in 118 industrialized and emerging economies, as well as the latest thinking and research from prominent trade experts and industry practitioners.

The Report includes the rankings of the Enabling Trade Index 2008 (ETI 2008), developed by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with international trade experts and leaders from the logistics and transport industry, is a comprehensive index intended to capture the full range of issues that contribute to hindering trade. It ranks nations according to factors facilitating the free flow of goods across national borders and to destination.

The index is structured to cover four major issue areas, namely; market access, border administration, transport and communications infrastructure, and the business environment. The ETI 2008 provides rankings for a total of 118 countries. The Global Enabling Trade Report aims to present a cross-country analysis of the large number of measures that can facilitate trade. It is a concrete tool to highlight trade obstacles to policymakers and facilitate continuous public-private dialogue aimed at improving the environment for trade at the national level.

On 18 June 2008 the authors of the report will be live on Qik http://qik.com/worldeconomicforum and BlogTV at http://www.blogtv.com/people/WorldEconomicForum.