This initiative supports work towards a global system of digital trade that drives growing and more equal opportunities. The current landscape of fragmented digital trade regulations hinders many small and medium- sized firms, in particular, from fully leveraging the benefits of e-commerce beyond their own home market.
The initiative focuses on three key areas:
(1) Promoting regulatory collaboration;
(2) Delivering effective and interoperable e-commerce and payment ecosystems;
(3) Exploring and incubating innovative trade-enabling technology;
The Digital Economy Agreement Leadership (DEAL) community convenes regulators from digital economy agreements (DEAs) and digital trade rulemaking fora (e.g. AfCFTA Digital Trade Protocol, WTO JSI E-Commerce negotiations), together with private-sector representatives and other stakeholders to share and promote best practices and impactful outcomes.
Within this, the ASEAN Digital Economy Agreement Leadership (DEAL) project actively supports the negotiation of the ongoing Digital Economy Framework Agreement (DEFA) negotiations within ASEAN. This project, funded by the ASEAN-Korea Cooperation Fund (AKCF) supports these negotiations by: (1) maintaining an online interactive repository of previous and existing negotiating outcomes to help negotiators agree on text and language that is broadly aligned with existing norms and standards; (2) conducting a cross-ASEAN business survey of MSMEs to better inform negotiators on the needs, priorities and preferences of their own MSMEs; (3) sensitizing ASEAN DEFA negotiators and ASEAN Secretariat to the perspective of regional and international businesses on issues under negotiation.
Digital Trade Development Program. This initiative tackles longstanding pain points crucial to making the benefits of e-commerce and digital trade accessible to MSMEs in both developed and developing countries, across: (1) policy, (2) connectivity, (3) finance, (4) logistics, and (5) skills. It identifies barriers to national digital trade success and helps governments effect practical change, working with local and global stakeholders. It builds on the World Economic Forum community’s successful track record in helping deliver trade facilitation, investment facilitation and services regulation reforms across African, Asian and Latin American economies. The program achieves rapid and sustainable results by ensuring top-down support and bottom-up design. Impact is measured in terms of the ease of doing business in the cross-border digital economy for MSMEs.
TradeTech and PAGA The TradeTech Initiative convenes a community of technology start-ups, investors, exporters and supply chain firms to explore the development of innovate trade-enabling technology within a supportive ecosystem. Through a business incubator and regulatory sandbox it accelerates the growth of technology applications to serve global trade needs.
The Payments to Advance Growth for All (PAGA) initiative focuses on improving access to and interoperability of cross-border digital payment solutions.
The World Economic Forum’s Digital Trust initiative seeks to establish a global consensus among stakeholders regarding what measurable steps can be taken to improve the trustworthiness of...
Cross-border payments enable international trade and globalization but are often costly, slow and opaque. As demand rises for faster, more transparent cross-border transactions and new in...
This report, written in collaboration with Sea, calls for a targeted and multistakeholder approach to tackling barriers to financial inclusion for the ASEAN region’s digital generation. T...
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...
A thriving, competitive range of digital payment methods readies countries to better connect to global trade in today's digital age. Yet the varied technical standards, laws and regulatio...
TradeTech adoption is moving fast, largely driven by the private sector. But leveraging technologies for trade requires more than innovation: trade policy must keep pace. The major challe...
Digitalization has prompted growing regulatory interest, including in the area of digital taxation. Many governments have proposed and implemented digital services taxes (DSTs), even as 1...
This White Paper on advancing data flow governance in the Asia-Pacific region explores international and regional best practices in four domestic contexts. In particular, the paper summar...
TradeTech, or the set of technologies and innovations that enable trade to be more efficient, inclusive, and equitable, is fundamental to harnessing the innovations of the Fourth Industri...
Papua New Guinea has embraced growth in the digital economy and targeted e-commerce as part of its development strategy. Making “Harnessing Inclusive Opportunities, Embracing Digital Futu...
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...
Powered by data flows, digitalization has become crucial for the seamless functioning of economies and societies. Countries, however, can have concerns that once data moves abroad it will...
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...
3D printing (3DP) might revolutionize the way products are made by disrupting manufacturing patterns, creating novel visual forms that were never possible before, enabling mass customizat...
According to the World Bank, between 1990 and 2017, developing countries increased their share of global exports from 16% to 30%, correlating with a fall in the global poverty rate from 3...
Digital transformation is rapidly taking place, and we need the right governance frameworks to maximize its positive contribution and enable societies to prosper.
Today, you can get on a plane and fly from one continent to the next. You can pick up your cell phone in Davos and call somebody in Buenos Aires or Toronto or Singapore as if they were ac...
In the second half of 2022, China unveiled the details of its data export regulations, providing further explanations to its existing laws and regulations on data.
The Japanese government is preparing to introduce a system for companies to pay salaries digitally – without going through bank accounts – by spring 2023. By promoting this system, which ...
The Fourth Industrial Revolution has had a profound impact on the way we trade. Digital payments, data flows and digital services have grown rapidly, and emerging technologies such as blo...
Trade constitutes the backbone of every economy and 80-90% of global trade requires financing. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) account for around 90% of companies and more than ...
TradeTech is the set of technologies that enhance the efficiency, inclusivity and sustainability of global trade. From transparency to efficiency gains, it has the potential to accelerate...
This month started with welcome news from the World Trade Organization (WTO). Despite many service sectors being clobbered during the pandemic, year-on-year growth in trade in services wa...
Digital currencies are growing: the market is valued at more than $2 trillion and involves more than 15,000 varieties. In 2021, El Salvador even adopted Bitcoin as its legal currency.
Life is full of ironies. The internet was to herald an era of greater transparency and accountability of governments – putting more information in the hands of citizens. Yet, it turns out...
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen the range of online services soar. Today, they provide a lifeline to many, bringing deliveries, medical assistance, entertainment and liveli...
Globalization is under threat. Even before the pandemic, globalization was already struggling due to years of stagnation in trade growth and uncertainties at the World Trade Organization ...
In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, many have turned to digital tools, services and infrastructure. The digital economy has been resilient and helped to keep our economy going: digital ...
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, digital services such as online education, virtual meeting rooms and online marketplaces have kept our economies running and helped us stay conne...
During the coronavirus crisis, digital payments have been keeping economies running and helping people reduce contact with virus.
COVID-19 has changed the way we live and work almost overnight. Analysts are struggling to keep pace with the impact on economies, sectors and firms. One thing that we already know, howev...
The European Commission rolled out a European strategy for data last week. While the strategy document consists of proposed measures not definitive rules, it has prompted questions on how...
Between emails, messages, sensors, machines, platforms, purchase transactions and so on, we are generating data at a furious pace. In 2018, 2.5 quintillion bytes of data was created every...
Trust between consumers and suppliers is often a bigger issue online than it is offline.
“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...
International trade has dominated the global headlines recently. Much of the discussions have been focused on the threat of a trade war, the tit-for-tat tariffs, and the health of the glo...
Inequalities between citizens of the same country are becoming a greater political concern. Although income inequality between countries has dropped over the last two decades, discrepanci...
