Transformative technologies and shifting political trends can make it difficult for the machinery of our multilateral trading system to keep up. The World Trade Agenda helps governments set key priority areas for inclusive trade.
Business – from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to large transnational corporations – produce the goods and services that are traded on a daily basis throughout the world while technology and internet communication are allowing new businesses to join the global marketplace.
One of the challenges faced by business in an integrated global economy is the absence or inadequacy of global rules in many crucial areas. The World Trade Organization (WTO) has a fundamental role to play in expanding and modernising international rules and investment – and in promoting effective implementation of and compliance with those rules – in order to create an effective 21st century multilateral trading system.
ICC, in partnership with the Qatar Chamber of Commerce and Industry, mobilises business worldwide around an inclusive and multilateral ‘World Trade Agenda’ for economic growth and job creation.
To define this agenda, ICC works with the international private sector and governments to set priority areas where WTO members can feasibly achieve results that will have a measurable impact on trade-led growth and development.
The World Trade Agenda also tracks the changing nature of trade, which in turn shifts potential priority areas for WTO members. Global value chains, for example, have become a dominant feature of today’s integrated economy as international production is increasingly driven by technological progress and access to resources and markets.
New technologies will doubtless continue to transform global trade – notably with the continued development of e-commerce and trade in services – and it is crucial that governments take stock of this change at the multilateral level to focus beyond responses to yesterday’s issues.