For developing countries, especially the poorest among them, trade—both imports and exports—is a powerful, cost-effective tool to mitigate the potentially devastating effects of COVID-19....
To quote the US Judge, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.: “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society”. While one can argue about the optimal size of the state, it is clear that all governments ...
“Digitalisation is transforming the global economy, but it is still hard, and in some cases getting harder, to do business abroad. More is required to facilitate trade for all players. Pa...
The global policy outlook for trade and investment has darkened over the past year. Trade conflict is proliferating while structural challenges have deepened. Business sentiment is on the...
Competition to lead the Fourth Industrial Revolution is fierce. Governments and firms across the globe are engaging in legitimate - and illegitimate - acts to get a foothold in a particul...
The notion that trade surpluses are a measure of a country’s economic prowess dates back centuries. In 16th-century Europe, “mercantilists” from England to Venice sought to accumulate gol...
Some years ago, the distinguished economist Richard Baldwin said: “Regional trade liberalisation sweeps the globe like wildfire”. He was right. Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) increa...
For the last 30 years, trade has been one of the stabilising pillars of the global community – creating jobs, supporting the development and spreading of technology and ideas, boosting pr...
This week, myself and colleagues from the World Bank Group will participate in the World Trade Organization’s Sixth Global Review of Aid-for-Trade. The bi-annual meetings, held at WTO hea...
As G20 leaders meet in Hamburg, many people feel the international trading system is unfair or unaccountable. Some blame it for the loss of jobs; others for pressurising local industries ...
Latin America’s economic downturn seems finally to have bottomed out. Positive, if modest, growth is forecast for this year. But as the region recovers from the end of the commodity super...
In the latter part of the 20th century, trade integration helped drive economic growth in advanced and developing countries, lifting millions out of poverty.
Trade gives people a tangible interest in each other’s economic wellbeing and offers a path to fiscally responsible growth, says Arancha González, Executive Director of the International ...
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...
