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3D Printing and Trade
3D printing, the key enabler for additive manufacturing, is a technique that offers unique benefits over conventional manufacturing, including greater design freedom, novel geometries, de...
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Global Future Councils
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Shaping the Future of Trade and Global Economic Interdependence
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Working to support debate and collaborative action on international trade and investment for recovery, growth and sustainable development.
The COVID-19 pandemic adds a massive shock to global markets that were already strained by trade tensions. Going forward, actors must contend with a trade landscape where business face significant uncertainty, and governments are looking to minimize the economic fall-out on citizens.
Our Platform works with a range of stakeholders to inform business and policy debate on critical trade and investment issues. We drive practical collaborative steps for growth and development, critical now more than ever.
The Platform currently focuses on trade shocks, tensions and governance; digital trade; new questions around industrial policy, tax and competition; investment and trade facilitation to poorer nations; and embedding sustainability into the future of value chains.
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Related Projects
Trade Shocks and Tensions
Bans on exports of medical supplies and foodstuffs amid the COVID-19 pandemic risk humanitarian tragedy. Yet global trade and investment governance reform, already under acute strain from...
Global Trade Single Window with Blockchain
The era of digitalization requires enterprises to rethink many aspects of their business models. Several enterprises in global trade have moved their digitalization focus toward the ecosy...
Digital Payments for Trade and Commerce
COVID-19 has accelerated the digital transformation of global trade and commerce. As the key enabling factor in digital trade, digital payments are an increasingly important driver in glo...
Competition, Tax and Industrial Policy
Globalization and digitalization necessitate updated international economic rules and enhanced global coordination. New business models and technologies have provided numerous benefits bu...
Digital ASEAN
ASEAN is the fastest growing Internet market in the world. With 125,000 new users coming onto the Internet every day, the ASEAN digital economy is projected to grow significantly, adding ...
Global Investment Policy and Practice
International investment is crucial to realizing the intertwined goals of sustainable development and corporate growth. The evidence shows that foreign direct investment (FDI) can generat...
Digital Trade
How can we ensure technology drives new, inclusive trade growth and recovery in the digital age? The Fourth Industrial Revolution – associated with rapid technological change and digitali...
Digital Trade in Services
Digital Trade in Services and Data Flows Digital trade in services refers to services supplied internationally over the Internet. Digitalization has helped boost the tradability of servic...
Green Trade
As governments and business grapple with the effects of COVID-19, other global challenges remain. Once the immediate pandemic crisis abates, countries must intensify environmental action ...
Tradetech
Technology is reshaping trade flows faster than trade policies can adapt. Disruptions from emerging technologies such as blockchain, Artificial Intelligence (AI), 3D printing, and Interne...
Global Health Security: Epidemics Readiness Accelerator
Global Health Security at the World Economic ForumThe Forum is committed to managing the risks associated with emerging infectious diseases of epidemic and pandemic potential through inno...
Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation
The Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation – jointly led by the Centre for International Private Entreprise, International Chamber of Commerce and World Economic Forum, in cooperation wit...
Related Reports
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...
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...
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 ...
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