Accelerating Decarbonization through Trade in Climate Goods and Services

By making climate-friendly technologies more readily available, trade can support climate action, and governments must work together to encourage their uptake.

Accelerating Digital Payments in Latin America and the Caribbean

Digital payment ecosystems are the invisible infrastructure powering commerce, trade and people’s daily lives. With the onset of global COVID-19 pandemic the value of digital payments for...

Conflict, Sanctions and the Future of World Trade

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been met with unprecedented trade and other economic sanctions. Some members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) have revoked Russia’s most-favoured-...

Supply Chain Sustainability Policies: State of Play

Supply chains are important levers for achieving sustainability goals and have gained increased corporate, governmental and civil society attention. This white paper charts regulatory dev...

Defining and Measuring Payment Interoperability

Leveraging the World Economic Forum's extensive community of payment experts, this report provides a forward-looking and inclusive approach to defining and measuring the different types o...

The promise of TradeTech: Policy approaches to harness trade digitalization

This publication identifies the building blocks for TradeTech policy adoption: the 5 Gs of TradeTech. Trade agreements and plurilateral initiatives are exploring the interplay between tec...

Industrial Policy and International Competition: Trade and Investment Perspectives

This paper outlines the state of play and issues of concern in the areas of subsidies, state ownership and control, public procurement, investment screening and controls, and the use of t...

Digital Trade in Services and Taxation

This white paper is a preliminary inquiry into the effects of DSTs on trade, investment and competition, drawing from multistakeholder interviews and a survey of firms facing these measures.

Delivering a Climate Trade Agenda: Industry Insights

For this report, the World Economic Forum, in collaboration with Clifford Chance, interviewed representatives from more than 30 companies to better understand how trade can support climat...

Advancing Data Flow Governance in the Indo-Pacific: Four Country Analyses and Dialogues

This White Paper on advancing data flow governance in the Asia-Pacific region explores international and regional best practices in four domestic contexts.

Mapping TradeTech: Trade in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

This report aims to shed light on the landscape of emerging trade technologies and consider the opportunities and challenges for each, ranging from AI to IoT to 3D printing.

Facilitation 2.0: Trade and Investment in the Digital Age

The project was a true co-creation of local and international multi-stakeholders. The report showcases our methodology, the progress made and next steps in the development of the Electron...

Advancing Digital Trade in Asia

Digital trade in Asia had been booming even before the COVID-19 pandemic that drove large numbers of firms and consumers online. The region has also been at the forefront of digital trade...

Digital FDI Policies, regulations and measures to attract FDI in the digital economy

FDI brings not only capital but also knowledge and technology. Attracting digital FDI can help economies and companies boost digital capabilities, but reflecting the fact that this is a n...

Facilitating Trade Along Circular Electronics Value Chains

Electronics are a critical part of our lives and even more so in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, however, too many electronics wind up in the environment, are recycle...

Plastics, the Circular Economy and Global Trade

This briefing note draws on the expertise of trade and environment experts from across the plastics value chain to identify the key cross-border challenges to scaling a more circular econ...

Data Free Flow with Trust (DFFT): Paths towards Free and Trusted Data Flows

A major international initiative on data flows, the Osaka Track, was launched by heads of governments under Japan’s G20 leadership in 2019. This paper develops a framework for ‘data free ...

Connecting Digital Economies: Policy Recommendations for Cross-Border Payments

The rapid expansion of access to digital payments has made it possible for consumers to conveniently make purchases for goods and services from merchants around the world. The current COV...

How Can Trade Rules Support Environmental Action?

As governments and businesses grapple with the effects of COVID-19, other global challenges remain. Once the immediate crisis abates, countries must intensify environmental action to tack...

The Future of Trade and Investment: A Call to Prevent Economic Fragmentation

In January 2019, the Global Future Council on International Trade and Investment outlined four potential scenarios for the future of global trade and investment. This briefing paper takes...

International Investment in the Age of Geopolitical Competition, Technological Change and Trade Confrontation

This briefing paper by the Global Future Council on International Trade and Investment explains the new forces shaping international investment. It outlines three possible future scenario...

Exploring International Data Flow Governance

This paper provides insights, developed through expert inputs, on domestic good practices as well as trade policy tools that can help balance facilitating cross-border data flows while pr...

Competition Policy in a Globalized, Digitalized Economy

Features of many digital platforms have led competition authorities to rethink traditional tools. In doing so, they have taken diverse views of the consumer welfare standard and the abili...

Corporate Tax, Digitalization and Globalization

As countries seek to reform international corporate tax rules to address these issues, this paper supports informed debate among non-experts. It has been produced with the input of a dive...

Africa E-commerce Agenda: Roadmap for Action

E-commerce in Africa is well underway, but it has potential to grow, creating new jobs and driving sustainable development. E-commerce stakeholders from within and beyond the continent ha...

Windows of Opportunity: Facilitating Trade with Blockchain Technology

Trade costs – the costs of moving cargo from one country to another – are a leading constraint for companies wanting to engage in trade. The development of trade single windows, a one-sto...

The Global Governance of Online Consumer Protection and E-commerce

Global Value Chain Policy Series: Taxation

This paper highlights the disconnect between the modern global economy and an outdated international tax framework and provides some suggestions for how tax policy could better promote su...

Global Value Chain Policy Series: Competition

Anti-competitive behaviour can affect the smooth functioning of global value chains (GVCs) in different ways and at various stages. The international nature of production networks, multin...

Global Value Chain Policy Series: Services

With new data revealing the extent of services’ contribution to global value chains, there has been greater policy interest in what drives services competitiveness. This paper traces the ...

Global Value Chain Policy Series: Investment

Given the important role of multinational enterprises (MNEs), attracting foreign direct investment is a key concern for countries keen to join value chains. This paper explains why increa...

Global Value Chain Policy Series: Environment

This paper examines two questions that arise at the intersection of environmental sustainability and global value chains. The first relates to trade and other barriers to the smooth funct...

Global Value Chain Policy Series: Introduction

The Global Value Chain Policy Series was launched in 2018 by the World Economic Forum’s System Initiative on Shaping the Future of International Trade and Investment. It consists of brief...

Addressing E-Payment Challenges in Global E-Commerce

Technology has altered the way consumers interact with payment systems. The Internet, digitization, shifting consumer preferences and, in some cases, regulatory reform have accelerated th...

Paperless Trading: How Does It Impact the Trade System?

Paperless trade refers to the digitization of information flows required to support goods and services crossing borders. Transforming what was traditionally a paper-based documentation sy...

Making Deals in Cyberspace: What’s the Problem?

This White Paper aims to build the knowledge of current e-transaction and e-signature rules. It evaluates how these apply in national and international commercial contexts, and bridges pe...

The Role of Law and Regulation in International Trade Finance: the Case of Correspondent Banking

This white paper will present a view of legal and regulatory structures in the context of trade financing, using the recent example of correspondent banking as a case study that highlight...

The Global Enabling Trade Report 2016

At a time of uncertainty, which aspects of trade policy and practice are working well? Our new report

The E15 Initiative: Strengthening the Global Trade and Investment System in the 21st Century

World trade has experienced a significant slowdown since the 2008 financial crisis. Over this period, the global ratio of trade expansion to income growth has halved. An effective global ...