Emerging technologies and digitisation are to trade today, what the steam engine was in the 1700s, a report on technology in trade says. While the benefits of TradeTech are many, uneven development could result in unequal growth, cybersecurity risks, fragmented “digital islands” and techno-nationalism, the joint World Trade Organisation (WTO) and World Economic Forum (WEF) paper said.
According to The promise of TradeTech: Policy approaches to harness trade digitalisation report, pairing emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and blockchain with international policy coordination could propel global trade and accelerate economic recovery.
TradeTech – the set of technologies that enables global trade and its digitalisation – is a critical part of supply chain resilience and a path to more efficient and inclusive trade, it said.
The report outlined five policy frontiers, the 5 Gs, for digitalisation to be adopted and scaled inclusively:
- Global data transmission and liability frameworks;
- Global legal recognition of electronic transactions and documents;
- Global digital identity of persons and objects;
- Global interoperability of data models for trade documents and platforms; and
- Global trade rules access and computation laws.
International policy coordination and public-private partnerships are key to ensure fragmented regulations do not become a technical barrier for technology adoption in global trade, it said.
WTO director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said, “Advanced technologies have the potential to make trade more efficient and more inclusive, but for this to happen policy action needs to keep pace with technological developments.”
Trade agreements can play a key role and recent trade agreements and plurilateral initiatives have started to explore the interplay between technology and trade.
WEF president Børge Brende said, “The Forum and the WTO are glad to be working on public-private partnerships that enable the further adoption of technologies in trade, in the goal of efficiency, inclusion and environmental gains.”
In looking at how technologies could be implemented, the report says GS1 standards as necessary.
GS1 standards were referenced as key building blocks for future digital trade technologies that will enable global trade to become more efficient, inclusive, and sustainable and ease supply chain bottlenecks around the world.
Standards including Global Trade Item Number (GTIN), Global Product Classification (GPC) and Global Location Number (GLN) were all called out as identification and classification solutions, as well as GS1 Digital Link being a way to link information and EANCOM and GS1 XML for data exchange.
GS1 Australia CEO and executive director Maria Palazzolo said GS1 was pleased that the WTO and WEF understood the benefits the adoption and adherence to global standards would bring to the systems.
“Our standards are the linkage between government agencies and industry. Their use ensures the same identifiers that are communicated with local trading partners are also used globally for the benefit of industry, regulators, and government agencies,” Palazzolo said.
The report is available here.
