trade digitalisation
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U.S.-Japan Trade Agreements and Negotiations
The United States and Japan, among the world’s largest economies, are close economic partners. As a top U.S. trade partner, Japan has been a priority for U.S. trade negotiations and regional economic cooperation. The U.S. and Japan do not have a comprehensive bilateral free trade agreement (FTA); the partners have two limited trade deals. The… Read more
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The harnessing of blockchain technologies, to contribute to development priorities in countries and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, is discussed in this note. The potential of blockchain technology for sustainable development is illustrated, demonstrating how its use might revolutionize processes in various areas, from finance to trade and from government public services to… Read more
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White Paper on Universal Trusted Credentials (UTC): Transforming Access to Finance for MSMEs and Beyond
Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) are the building blocks of every nation’s economy, accounting for up to 90% of businesses and 70% of employment worldwide.1 Unsurprisingly, SME development has become a key priority for many governments, as evidenced by UNDP’s extensive country-level work in that field, around the world. Yet, globally, MSMEs still face… Read more
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Blueprint Paper on Digital Trade and the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records
For centuries, as the backbone of the global economy, domestic and international trade, and trade finance, have driven business practices that evolved into legal norms. These have been conducted and recorded in vast numbers of paper-based documents, the exchange of which continues to be mostly done physically. This paper-based process has many deficiencies and inefficiencies.… Read more
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You are likely reading this on a digital device. In the last week you’ve probably done your banking, communicated, and maybe even booked a flight, an Uber or a holiday — all digitally. You may even find it hard to remember when you last needed a paper document. Yet in international shipping, almost 96% of… Read more
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Speeding up the Digitalisation of Trade Finance
International trade between professionals is built on a complex documentary chain, yet it is far less digitalised than e-commerce. The latter enables consumers to order or exchange goods and services, cancel orders, have items delivered and pay without a single paper-based document. Less than 0.1% of the four billion new documents produced each year in… Read more
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Using electronic documents and transactions can speed up and increase trade. Electronic messages can eliminate the need to enter data into a computer manually at each supply chain checkpoint and can provide opportunities for the potential reuse of data. There are various ways to digitize trade documents and transactions. One way is simply to take… Read more
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Meeting of Ministers of SPECA Participating States
We, the Ministers/the Head of delegations of SPECA participating States – Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, gathered in Geneva on April 17 of 2023 on the margins of the 70th Session of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) for a high-level dialogue with heads of the United Nations regional commissions, Permanent… Read more
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Verifiable Trust: A Foundational Digital Layer Underpinning the Physical, Financial, and Information Supply Chain
Digital trade, or the application of digital technologies to trade and supply chain processes, is an opportunity to drive efficiency, speed, and resilience for companies, industries and countries that rely on trade for growth. The pace of technological advancement, and the falling cost of computing power and storage, now make the benefits of digitally-enabled trade… Read more
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The international supply chain is growing in complexity at the same time as nation states seek to improve their border compliance for imports and facilitate access to export markets for their domestic producers. The global value chain is highly dependent on smooth cross-border supply flows (tangible, intangible and data). In an uncertain world that is… Read more