The International Trade Centre (ITC) Annual Report 2016-TRADE IMPACT FOR GOOD
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ITC is the joint agency of the World Trade Organization and the United Nations.
ITC's Annual Report provides a broad overview of what the organization accomplished in 2016. It briefly describes the work of each of ITC’s 15 programmes to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by leveraging the power of regional and international markets for inclusive growth and job creation. A dozen case studies illustrate how ITC projects created trade impact for good from Haiti to Myanmar.
The report will serve as the basis for discussions at the 10 July session of the ITC Joint Advisory Group, where government delegates will review the agency’s work, and make recommendations for its future operations to its parent organizations, the United Nations and the World Trade Organization.
Some highlights from 2016: Despite a complex political and financial context, ITC remained focused on delivering thought leadership, technical assistance and capacity building to make trade work for the 99%. The second edition of the SME Competitiveness Outlook, ITC’s annual flagship report, shed light on how governments could best help small and medium-sized enterprises overcome non-tariff measures and make the most of existing market access opportunities. By the end of 2016, signatories to ITC’s SheTrades had collectively pledged to connect 600,000 women entrepreneurs to markets by 2020. Internally, ITC progressed further towards its goal of gender parity at all levels.
4. 2 INTERNATIONAL TRADE CENTRE
Contents
Foreword 4
The Global Goals are ITC’s goals 6
The global context 8
ITC INTERVENTIONS: DOING MORE, BETTER 12
Providing Trade and Market Intelligence 16
Building a Conducive Business Environment 24
Strengthening Trade and Investment Support Institutions 32
Connecting to International Value Chains 38
Promoting and Mainstreaming Inclusive and Green Trade 46
Supporting Regional Economic Integration and South-South links 58
CORPORATE RESULTS 66
Corporate governance 68
Evaluation and performance 70
Financial overview 72
Human resource management 75
Communication and outreach 77
Major ITC events 79
Partnerships 81
APPENDICES 92
APPENDIX I: ITC focus areas and programmes 94
APPENDIX II: ITC technical cooperation by region and focus area 96
APPENDIX III: ITC country and regional projects and programmes by country 103
APPENDIX IV: ITC needs assessment and project design in 2016 by region 110
APPENDIX V: Profile of ITC staff 112
APPENDIX VI: Distribution of assignments by nationality and gender of experts, 2016 113
APPENDIX VII: Schedule of voluntary contributions to the ITC Trust Fund 117
5. ANNUAL REPORT 2016 3
Building peace and
sustainable livelihoods
through inclusive
tourism in Myanmar
Market power and value
addition deliver income
gains for Zambian
cotton farmers
40
60
Increased sales for
exporters and higher
prices for farmers in
Kenya’s avocado sector
Supporting international
sourcing and sales for
Tunisia’s textiles and
clothing sector
42
62
Alliances for a
more competitive
Caribbean
coconut industry
Facilitating China-Africa
trade and investment
for value addition and
job creation
44
64
In partnership with
INVESTING IN
TRADE PROMOTION
GENERATES REVENUE
Quantifying trade and
investment support
institutions’ impact on
trade performance and GDP
Bolstering Zimbabwe’s
infrastructure for standards
compliance and certification
34 36
ePing: Cooperating
to give SMEs real-time
information about
non-tariff measures
Case studies
Equipping SMEs with
the information they need
to access markets
20 22
Tackling non-tariff measures at
the regional level to improve the
business climate for trade
PROVIDING TRADE AND MARKET INTELLIGENCE
BUILDING A CONDUCIVE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT
STRENGTHENING TRADE AND INVESTMENT SUPPORT INSTITUTIONS
CONNECTING TO INTERNATIONAL VALUE CHAINS
SUPPORTING REGIONAL ECONOMIC INTEGRATION AND SOUTH-SOUTH LINKS
SheTrades:
Empowering
women entrepreneurs
in international markets
Empowering
hat-makers
in Haiti through
ethical fashion
Using trade to
create jobs
and build skills for
refugees
51 54 56
PROMOTING AND MAINSTREAMING INCLUSIVE AND GREEN TRADE
Leveraging WTO
commitments to boost
intraregional trade in
West Africa
28 30
6. 4 INTERNATIONAL TRADE CENTRE
Foreword
For the trade and development community, 2016 merited
that over-quoted Dickensian phrase: ‘It was the best of
times, it was the worst of times.’
In the year after the world’s governments adopted the
Global Goals for Sustainable Development, international
trend lines for poverty, hunger, and child mortality continued
their welcome journey downward. The World Trade
Organization’s Trade Facilitation Agreement progressed
steadily towards entry into force as dozens of countries
ratified the accord and started to implement measures to
cut trading costs and border delays. In many major
economies it was the year in which solar or wind power first
became cheaper than electricity generated from fossil fuels,
a critical tipping point on the road to curbing climate change
in line with the Paris Agreement.
And yet, 2016 saw the open global economy – a key driver
of all of these positive trends – come under sustained
political attack on a scale unseen in decades. Opposition to
open markets drew support from substantial sections of the
electorate in several developed economies. Much of this
backlash was the product of years of inadequate domestic
policies to ensure that the gains from globalization were
widely shared. Yet the fact is that if protectionist rhetoric is
translated into reality, possibilities for trade-led growth will
diminish for developing countries while limiting the gains
from specialization and productivity everywhere.
Amid today’s tensions, one thing is clear: inclusive growth,
and making trade work for the 99%, is more important than
ever, in developed economies and developing ones alike.
The International Trade Centre (ITC) remains committed to
these objectives. Bringing countries and communities from
the margins to the mainstream of the world economy has
been the goal for which we have worked since our founding
in 1964. Empowering small and medium-sized enterprises
(SMEs) to connect to international value chains is essential
to translate trade into equitable increases in income and life
opportunities, since they employ the vast majority of the
workforce. Especially in least developed countries, small,
vulnerable economies and fragile states, inclusive trade will
be critical to achieving the broad-based growth and job
creation needed to achieve the Global Goals by 2030.
In the current political environment, ITC’s core goal – to enable
businesses to make the best possible use of existing levels
of market opening – is especially relevant. This report sums
up how ITC worked to make trade happen in 2016, delivering
close to $50 million of extra-budgetary expenditures on
technical assistance, capacity support and innovative analysis
despite a complicated funding context. Working together with
its partners in the public and private sectors, ITC leveraged
each dollar received into $14 in new trade for companies that
use ITC tools or are directly involved in ITC projects.
On the analytical front, the second edition of our annual
flagship report, the SME Competitiveness Outlook, shed
light on how non-tariff measures weigh on the exports of
smaller firms and yielded insights about how governments
could most effectively help SMEs overcome challenges
arising from standards and regulations as well as where the
business community could invest for further growth.
In terms of implementation, a dozen case studies from
across the six focus areas of our work serve to highlight
ITC’s solutions-oriented approaches, be it partnering with
governments and regional institutions to improve the
business climate for trade or empowering women
entrepreneurs to grow their companies and connect to
international markets. Three additional ‘ITC Innovates’
stories describe new initiatives that we anticipate will deliver
considerable results in the future. One of these, which
seeks to harness the power of mobile internet technology to
4
7. ANNUAL REPORT 2016 5
create income opportunities for refugees and asylum-
seekers, addresses one of the biggest humanitarian
challenges of our time. Like many of our more novel recent
approaches to solving longstanding problems, the refugee
skills initiative emerged from ITC’s Innovation Lab, which
has been living up to its objective of fostering a culture of
innovation across the organization.
One particular cause for pride in 2016 was the emergence of
visible dividends and multipliers from earlier ITC initiatives.
For example, SheTrades was launched in 2015; by the end
of last year, partner organizations from Nigeria to Finland to
Sri Lanka had signed on to its call for action, pledging to
connect 600,000 women entrepreneurs to markets – already
more than halfway to the original goal of bringing 1 million
women to market by 2020.
At the institutional level, ITC is committed to constant self-
improvement in order to better serve our clients. This is why,
over the past two years, we have been shifting to a
programme-based approach to conceptualizing and
organizing our interventions. The new approach promises
increased managerial effectiveness as well as a more
cohesive project portfolio in line with the Global Goals. To
this end, ITC’s internal structures have been reorganized to
better align institutional reporting lines with our core areas of
work with the goal of further enhancing operational
efficiency as we move to implement our ambitious project
pipeline. We also continued to make progress towards our
target of achieving gender parity at all professional levels.
Finally, because delivering for our clients requires resources,
we made major efforts in 2016 to increase and diversify our
funding sources.
In the face of unexpected reductions in voluntary contributions,
we continued to deliver trade impact for good, and drove
fundraising efforts that promise to bear fruit in 2017. We
hope that within these pages you will recognize the success
that we have achieved on the ground, and that you will see
continued value in investing in ITC as your partner for
inclusive trade and development.
Arancha González
Executive Director
1. E-commerce entrepreneurs at the Joint Advisory Group 2016 2. Launch of the SME Competitiveness Outlook 2016 3. Launch of the SheTrades
initiative, Nigeria 4. World Export Development Forum 2016, Colombo 5. Award-winners at TPO Network World Conference and Awards 2016,
Marrakesh 6. Trade for Sustainable Development Forum 2016, Geneva
2 3
5 6
8. 6 INTERNATIONAL TRADE CENTRE
The Global Goals are ITC’s goals
The Global Goals for Sustainable Development represent a
universal, global development agenda for all United Nations
member states and development actors until 2030.
They consist of an integrated, interlinked set of 17 goals
supported by 169 targets in economic, social and
environmental development dimensions. ITC directly
supports 10 Global Goals.
ITC contributes to the Global Goals via its support to
small and medium-sized entreprise (SME) international
competitiveness for inclusive and sustainable growth through
value addition, trade, investment and global partnerships. It
has systems in place to monitor results and assists the
global community in tracking advances towards achieving
the Global Goals. A code of conduct guides ITC interventions.
SME international
competitiveness
Small and
medium-sized
enterprises
Trade and
investment
support
institutions
Policymakers
TRADE-RELATEDNEEDS
FOCUS AREAS
TRADE
Providing trade and
market intelligence
Building a conducive business
environment
Strengthening trade and
investment support institutions
Connecting to international
value chains
Promoting and mainstreaming
inclusive and green trade
Supporting regional economic
integration and South-South links
25% 19% 17% 30%9%
How ITC projects link to individual SDGs
9. ANNUAL REPORT 2016 7
GOAL 1
ƒƒ Reduce proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty.
ƒƒ Create sound policy frameworks based on pro-poor and gender-sensitive
development strategies.
GOAL 2
ƒƒ Double productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers, in particular women.
ƒƒ Provide access to knowledge, markets and opportunities for value addition.
ƒƒ Ensure sustainable food production systems.
GOAL 4
ƒƒ Ensure youth and adults have relevant skills for employment, decent jobs
and entrepreneurship.
GOAL 5
ƒƒ Ensure women’s full and effective participation in business and trade
and equal opportunities.
ƒƒ Support women’s equal rights to economic resources.
ƒƒ Enhance use of enabling technology to promote the empowerment of women.
GOAL 8
ƒƒ Achieve higher levels of economic productivity through diversification, technological upgrading
and innovation.
ƒƒ Promote policies that support productive activities, decent job creation, entrepreneurship,
creativity and innovation.
ƒƒ Encourage formalization and growth of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.
ƒƒ Implement policies to promote sustainable tourism that creates jobs and promotes local culture
and products.
ƒƒ Increase Aid for Trade support.
GOAL 9
ƒƒ Ensure a conducive policy environment for industrial diversification and value addition.
ƒƒ Increase access of SMEs to financial services and integration into value chains and markets.
GOAL 10
ƒƒ Achieve income growth of the bottom 40%.
ƒƒ Implement special and differential treatment for developing countries, in particular least
developed countries (LDCs), in accordance with World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements.
GOAL 12
ƒƒ Achieve sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources.
ƒƒ Support companies in adopting sustainable practices and integrating sustainability information
into their reporting cycles.
GOAL 16
ƒƒ Support effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels.
ƒƒ Ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making.
ƒƒ Ensure participation of developing countries in the institutions of global governance.
GOAL 17
ƒƒ Ensure a universal, rules-based, open, non-discriminatory and equitable multilateral trading
system under the WTO.
ƒƒ Support significantly increased exports of developing countries, doubling the LDCs’
share of global exports by 2020.
ƒƒ Realize timely implementation of duty-free and quota-free market access on a lasting
basis for all LDCs.
11. ANNUAL REPORT 2016 9
and one computer would be unable to communicate with
another. Governments adopt regulations to protect
consumer safety and animal and plant health, so that
children’s car seats do not collapse under pressure and to
reduce the risk that imported fruit might unwittingly carry
diseases or pests that would decimate a country’s native
plant species. Businesses introduce standards into their
value chains to ensure product quality and protect their
brand reputations. Increasingly, companies and non-profit
organizations alike are developing non-mandatory
standards linked to a wide and growing array of social and
environmental objectives. Such ‘voluntary sustainability
standards’ originated primarily in the industrialized world,
but the trend is changing, with new measures frequently
headquartered in developing countries such as Brazil,
Colombia, India, Kenya and South Africa.
The 2016 edition of ITC’s annual flagship research report,
the SME Competitiveness Outlook, focused on the role
standards and regulations play in promoting these different
varieties of what ITC terms ‘good trade.’
Titled Meeting the Standard for Trade, it placed special
emphasis on examining how SMEs seeking to trade across
borders are affected – positively and negatively – by these
standards and regulations.
Because SMEs account for the majority of firms and jobs in
most countries, their ability to become more productive and
trade successfully tends to translate into income gains for
people in the poorer, more vulnerable segments of society –
and is thus crucial if trade is to regain widespread public
support as an engine of inclusive economic growth. SMEs
that neither import nor export tend to be less productive and
pay lower wages than firms that do either (or both).
Complying with standards and regulations is increasingly a
prerequisite for market entry. This can create commercial
opportunities for SMEs: when a given requirement is
associated with an international value chains, compliance
can open the door to privileged access to buyers within that
value chain. In such cases, standards and regulations can
help facilitate SME access to international markets.
Yet meeting standards and regulations generally implies
costs for SMEs. These costs in turn depend to a significant
extent on how the measures are designed, and on the
quality and affordability of the local technical infrastructure
for testing and certifying conformity with standards and
regulations. When standards are designed with little thought
for suppliers’ needs and technical institutions are weak,
compliance costs can quickly become prohibitive,
especially for smaller firms. Analysis in the SME
Competitiveness Outlook 2016 showed that this regulatory
burden hits small firms twice as hard as large firms: a 10%
increase in the regulatory burden cuts export revenue for
large firms by 1.6%, but by 3.2% for small firms. If small
firms’ margins are narrower, the impact on profitability will
be greater still.
FIGURE 1 Global trade growth: Medium- and short-term trends
Left Panel: (left axis) Index of world export volumes of goods and services where 2001=100. (right axis) Percentage change of year-on-year export volumes.
Source: IMF World Economic Outlook, October 2016.
Right panel: Quarter on quarter seasonally adjusted merchandise export growth volumes for developed and developing economies.
Source: World Trade Organization.
0%
-5%
-10%
-15%
5%
10%
15%
20%
Growth ratesIndex of world export volumes (2001=100) Index (2001=100)
20162002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 20142001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015
Developed countries Developing countries
0
25
50
75
100
125
150
175
200
225
20162002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 20142001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015
S.A. export growth in volume terms (%)
‐3.0
‐2.0
‐1.0
0.0
1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
Developed countries Developing countries
Consumer
protection
Environmental
sustainability
Social
responsibility
16. 14 INTERNATIONAL TRADE CENTRE
What ITC delivered in 2016
The figures below provide a snapshot of how ITC delivered
on its mandate in 2016. In the United Nations planning and
budgeting cycle, targets are set for two-year periods. The
figures below show some of ITC’s key results for the first half
of the 2016–2017 biennium. Some of the numbers relate to
indicators for assessing ITC’s performance against the
overarching goals defined in its Strategic Plan for 2015–17.
Others reflect ITC’s overall performance in terms of spurring
inclusive trade.
Strengthened integration of the business
sector into the global economy
Improved international competitiveness of enterprises
Empowering women in the global economy
Improved performance of trade and
investment support institutions (TISIs)
for the benefit of enterprises
233000
additional users of trade intelligence have
greater awareness of international trade as
a result of ITC support
(biennium target: 175 000)
170
TISIs indicated ITC support helped them improve
operational and/or managerial performance
(biennium target: 400)
6500additional enterprises were supported to improve their
international competitiveness or to meet buyers with
whom they subsequently transacted business
(biennium target: 14 000)
22 000
participants in ITC training courses
(biennium target: 20 000)
600 000
Signatories to the SheTrades initiative pledged
to connect 600 000 women entrepreneurs to
international markets by 2020
(2020 target: 1 million)
51%
of the 6 500 additional enterprises referenced above
were owned, operated and controlled by women.
(biennium target: 40%)
17. ANNUAL REPORT 2016 15
Key performance indicators
The below indicators track ITC’s delivery of technical assistance and work to enhance effectiveness.
Leveraging funding into trade
ITC has estimated the value of international business
transactions generated through its interventions in 2016.
The projection is based on three components: feedback
from users of ITC market intelligence tools; documented
business leads and deals; and additional exports generated
through the operational and managerial efficiency gains
achieved by the 18 TISIs that worked closely with ITC.
$85.4million
$685 million
ITC’s delivery
across all budgets
in estimated export and
investment value resulting from
ITC market intelligence, business
connections and support to TISIs
85% of country-specific
assistance went to priority countries
(target: 70%)
$201million
in pipeline projects laying foundation
for future growth (target: $175 million)
$78 million
97% of clients
$1$21
$1$14
XB funds raised for 2017 and beyond
(target: $95 million)
rated ITC services positively
(target: 80%)
Each dollar invested in ITC’s Business
Development Fund catalyzed
$21 in XB funding (target: $20)
ITC leverages each dollar in XB funding
into $14 of international export and
investment transactions
2017
19. ITC INTERVENTIONS: DOING MORE, BETTER
ANNUAL REPORT 2016 17
online tool on ITC’s Standards Map, which contains
information on more than 230 voluntary standards. The new
tool will help SAI Platform members meet their sustainable
sourcing targets and provide their thousands of suppliers
with information about complying with sustainability criteria
and avoiding duplication in sustainability assessments.
The second edition of ITC’s flagship research publication
was launched in October. SME Competitiveness Outlook
2016: Meeting the Standard for Trade contains analysis and
practical recommendations for policymakers, SME
managers and standard-setters on how to enable SMEs to
meet standards and regulations – often a prerequisite for
participating in international value chains – in order to drive
growth and job creation.
ITC market intelligence tools are global public goods that
continue to provide up-to-date trade information to
businesses, researchers and journalists around the world.
Based on ITC’s annual user survey, the tools helped
generate around $300 million in trade transactions in 2016
(see case study).
Non-Tariff Measures
The Non-Tariff Measures (NTMs) Programme brings the
concerns of SMEs about regulatory and procedural trade
obstacles to the attention of policymakers and other
stakeholders, enabling concrete, specific responses. It
increases the transparency of NTMs through company-level
data collection and dissemination and provides thought
leadership through applied research and analysis, thus
contributing to evidence-based policymaking and reduced
trade costs.
Key results
NTM surveys in 13 developing
countries
18 000 trade-related regulations
for 90 countries documented in Market
Access Map tool
Highlights
ITC’s NTM Surveys (www.ntmsurvey.org) and trade
obstacles alert mechanisms in 2016 channelled views from
more than 5,700 SMEs in 13 developing countries to
decision-makers. The surveys and alerts provide evidence
about trade obstacles that businesses encounter on the
ground; related stakeholder consultations in Benin,
Comoros, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Ethiopia,
Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Mali, Nepal, the Philippines, the
Seychelles and Uganda, as well as at the regional level in
West Africa, explored practical ways to remove these
obstacles.
ITC NTM analysis informed the work of a Philippines
government technical committee on simplifying trade
procedures as well as ITC-backed sector export strategies
in Nepal. It has in some instances already led to tangible
changes on the ground, exemplified by the partial removal
of an export ban on scrap metals in Mauritius after
businesses reported it to the country’s trade obstacles alert
mechanism.
In addition, a business survey across the 28 European
Union (EU) member states shed light on the NTM-related
barriers EU companies encounter when exporting to and
sourcing from developing countries. Based on input from
more than 8,000 EU firms – of which four out of every five
1. National roundtable on non-tariff measures, Uganda 2. ITC Market Access Map booth, Central Asian Trade Forum 2016, Kazakhstan
21 3
20. ITC INTERVENTIONS: DOING MORE, BETTER
18 INTERNATIONAL TRADE CENTRE
were SMEs – the survey yielded insights that in turn will
serve as a benchmark for comparison for the challenges
reported by businesses based in those developing
countries.
Transparency, research and analysis efforts continued in
2016. New ITC country publications for Thailand, Indonesia
and Egypt brought the NTM series total to 28.
By year’s end, information on more than 18,000 regulations
on exports and imports applied by 90 countries was
available online through the Market Access Map tool. For
certain countries, such as Jordan and Bangladesh, this
data was complemented by information on administrative
procedures related to exporting and importing.
In November, ITC, the World Trade Organization and the
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs
jointly launched a new regulatory alert system, called ePing,
that will notify users when countries announce changes to
their health and safety standards or technical regulations for
products of interest to them (see case study). The goal is to
keep users informed about regulatory changes and to give
businesses an opportunity to signal potential trade irritants
to national authorities so they can be swiftly resolved.
While ITC’s NTM survey work has thus far concentrated on
trade in goods, it will soon extend to services after the
finalization and testing in 2016 of a methodology to capture
barriers experienced by operators in the information
technology, transport and logistics and tourism sectors.
Competitive Intelligence
The ITC Competitive Intelligence Programme delivers
training and advisory services and develops online solutions
to strengthen the capacity of TISIs in developing economies
to provide clients with the real-time customized intelligence
they need to improve operational performance and compete
more effectively on international markets. It also assists
SMEs to define their information needs, identify
opportunities and anticipate risks.
Key results
Trade information portal created in
Zimbabwe
Enabled TISIs in 3 African countries to
make market data more accessible to clients
Highlights
In Zimbabwe, ITC set up a national Trade Information Portal
(tradezimbabwe.com), drawing on inputs from a network of
trade-related institutions. The portal provides the country’s
business community with up-to-date news and intelligence
on foreign markets and their requirements, covering issues
ranging from customs procedures, export guidelines and
trade agreements through to information about business
opportunities and useful contacts. The portal functions as
an online international showcase for Zimbabwean
companies, goods, services and local business
opportunities. In addition, tradezimbabwe.com hosts the
online European Business Information Centre, an online
service platform containing Europe-specific information
services for manufacturers and exporters interested in
European markets. The platform also serves to connect
1. Trade Investment Facilitation Mechanism meeting, Egypt 2. Roundtable on non-tariff measures, Nepal
1 2
21. ANNUAL REPORT 2016 19
European entrepreneurs to Zimbabwean companies,
products and opportunities.
In Tunisia, ITC laid the groundwork for establishing a
monitoring cell to provide business intelligence on trends,
risks and opportunities in online trade. Once it comes online
in early 2017, the service, which will operate through the
country’s Centre de Promotion des Exportations (CEPEX),
will enable better decision-making and expand access to
markets for Tunisian SMEs that sell goods and services over
the internet.
In the Bahamas, ITC was chosen by the Caribbean
Development Bank to build a trade information portal in
coordination with the country’s Ministry of Financial Services
and the Bahamian Chamber of Commerce. The portal will
serve as a one-stop shop to meet the informational needs of
local entrepreneurs seeking to internationalize their
operations and should thus contribute to helping the country
diversify away from its current overreliance on tourism and
off-shore services. It will also be a bridge for foreign
entrepreneurs to build links to Bahamian suppliers of goods
and services.
Finally, in Kenya, the United Republic of Tanzania, and
Zambia, ITC accompanied a project on promoting
intraregional trade with training for TISIs on how to collect
and present market data for their clients. Kenya’s Export
Promotion Council has deployed its new expertise to
regularly circulate information on mango trade to
stakeholders in the sector. The Zambia Development
Agency in February created a competitive intelligence portal
for its honey sector to help industry actors make better
business decisions.
2016 Funders
Core funders
Canada, China, Finland, Germany, India, Ireland,
Sweden
Project-specific funders
Caribbean Development Bank, Denmark, European
Union, European Feed Manufacturers’ Federation
(FEFAC), Germany, Humanist Institute for Cooperation
with Developing Countries (HIVOS), Islamic Centre for
Development of Trade, Japan, PepsiCo, Russian
Federation, Sime Darby, Switzerland, Stichting IDH
Sustainable Trade Initiative, Sustainable Agriculture
Initiative (SAI) Platform, United Kingdom, United States,
UN Development Programme (UNDP), UN Environment
Programme (UNEP)
SME Trade Academy in Libya: Developing entrepreneurship in a fragile state
In the second half of 2016 ITC partnered with Expertise
France, the French international technical cooperation
agency, to develop and launch a pilot Arabic-language
course for young Libyan entrepreneurs. The youth-oriented
course provides an understanding of entrepreneurship as
a way to overcome difficult economic conditions.
In light of the country’s political instability, the six-week
course was rolled out in collaboration with municipalities
and seven universities in cities such as Tripoli, Misrata and
Benghazi. The local partners complemented the online
courses with in-person information and coaching.
Despite electricity shortages and repeated bouts of
insecurity, 1,074 young people, over a quarter of them
women, self-enrolled in the course, of whom 303
successfully completed it and received a digital certificate.
Course participants came from 40 locations all over Libya
(see map).
The goal of this pilot project was to confirm that e-learning,
backed by local coaching, can be an effective approach
for capacity building in Libya. Based on the positive initial
results, Expertise France has announced further funding
while including the project in a larger European Union-
funded programme for sustainable economic
development in Libya. Thanks to this support, Expertise
France and ITC will in 2017 and 2018 expand the SME
Trade Academy’s Libya-focused offerings to a 100-hour
curriculum accompanied by online tools for entrepreneurs
starting businesses in Libya, and in doing so contribute to
the country’s economic recovery.
Zawiya
Tripoli
Misrata
Sirte
Nalut
Gharyan
Bani Walid
Hun
Ghat
Sabha
Kufra
Jalu
Tobruk
Benghazi
Ajdabiya
300 100 50 10 1
22. 20 INTERNATIONAL TRADE CENTRE
1
CASE STUDY
ePing: Cooperating to give
SMEs real-time information
about non-tariff measures
The challenge
For companies around the world, meeting technical
regulations and product standards is an increasingly
important part of doing business, whether internationally or
at home. With manufacturing production increasingly
fragmented across countries and regions, standards play a
critical role in insuring that components made in one factory
fit where they belong in another. Meanwhile, consumer
expectations for product safety, quality and sustainability
have steadily increased. ITC’s Market Access Map tool now
counts more than 13,000 regulations and conformity
assessment procedures that come under World Trade
Organization (WTO) rules for Sanitary and Phytosanitary
(SPS) measures and Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT).
The growing number of such non-tariff measures (NTMs)
makes trading more complex, in particular for small and
medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries.
These firms often struggle to make sense of the plethora of
health and safety requirements, product regulations, testing
and certification procedures and other such measures
necessary for market entry.
ITC business surveys conducted in more than 60 countries
reveal that over 50% of the trade obstacles encountered by
businesses relate to SPS and TBT measures.
Meanwhile, the number of NTMs continues to grow. Each
year, governments notify the WTO of more than 3,500 TBT
and SPS measures, in line with transparency obligations for
policies that may affect international trade. The notifications
are supposed to give trading partners advance notice to
understand and comment on impending policy changes.
However, SMEs already struggling to cope with existing
NTMs are ill-equipped to digest these new flows of
information.
The response
ITC joined hands with the United Nations Department of
Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) and the WTO to set
up ePing, an online alert mechanism for new SPS and TBT
notifications. After signing up (registration is free), users
receive daily or weekly alerts on new WTO notifications in
sectors and markets of interest to them. SMEs are thus
better equipped to share any concerns about prospective
market requirements with their own national authorities and
ultimately to understand and comply with measures that
eventually enter into force.
More broadly, by enabling real-time debate on specific
product requirements, the online tool supports timely and
effective engagement among private sector and public
stakeholders on SPS and TBT issues.
The ePing system complements ITC’s suite of online trade
and market intelligence tools, which accessibly present data
on trade, investment, tariffs, NTMs, private standards and
government procurement. In addition to the real-time alerts,
companies can use ePing to search for older SPS and TBT
notifications for sectors and markets they operate in.
The results
Prior to its global launch on 8 November, the ePing
mechanism was tested in countries including Australia,
Canada, Nepal, the Philippines and Uganda. User feedback
has been positive, with government officials and business
representatives praising the system for enhancing
transparency around NTMs and enabling companies to
prepare for policy change.
‘ePing is a useful platform for our exporters and
stakeholders to readily access new trade challenges that
affect their products and markets,’ said Nora Terrado,
undersecretary for the Philippines’ Department of Trade and
24. 22 INTERNATIONAL TRADE CENTRE
CASE STUDY
Equipping SMEs with
the information they need
to access markets
The challenge
Even in the information age, the kinds of information that
businesses need when trying to sell into new markets can
be hard to find. Data on international demand trends and
information about tariff levels and requirements – like health
and safety standards in target markets – tends to be
fragmented, unavailable or expensive. Voluntary sustainability
standards are increasingly de facto requirements to enter
some lucrative market segments. Even before companies
can grapple with the costs of certification they must
understand which standards are relevant in a given market
and what they would need to do to comply.
The costs and time associated with such intelligence-
gathering weigh heavily on small and medium-sized enterprises
(SMEs), especially those in developing countries, which tend to
be less internationally competitive in the first place. As a result, it
becomes harder than it should be for SMEs to buy or sell across
borders and connect to value chains.
Moreover, even when firms are able to internationalize,
prices may fall if they end up contributing to a supply glut.
With better knowledge of market demand and price trends,
SMEs would be able to make better trade-related decisions.
The response
Making trade information available to businesses in
developing countries has been ITC’s raison d’être since its
founding. Starting in 1999, ITC created a suite of online
market intelligence tools that are completely free for users in
developing countries. These global public goods – Trade
Map, Market Access Map, and Standards Map – hold data
from more than 190 countries and make it easy to visualize
through tables, graphs and maps. Some of the data in the
tools – on non-tariff measures, ad valorem equivalent tariffs
and tariff quotas – cannot be found elsewhere; ITC experts
calculate the statistics and share them with other
international agencies.
ITC market intelligence tools help users – exporters,
importers, journalists, researchers, and others – navigate
the constantly changing landscape of international trade
and regulations. For instance, a would-be exporter can use
Trade Map to discover which markets for her SME’s
products have been the most dynamic in recent years and
access contact information for importers in those markets.
She can then advance to Market Access Map to see
whether her country benefits from preferential tariff access
to a target market and to understand the tariff rates and
non-tariff measures that would apply to her products. Finally,
Standards Map would allow her to identify any relevant
sustainability standards and determine whether they might
be worth adopting.
A parallel component of ITC’s work is to train
representatives from businesses, governments, trade and
investment support institutions (TISIs) and the media in the
use of the market intelligence tools, contributing to better
analysis and a fact-based understanding of trade.
In 2016, the number of registered users of ITC market
intelligence tools surpassed 600,000, with over 3.2 million
online visits.
The results
In 2016, ITC market intelligence tools helped generate
around $300 million in trade transactions, based on
businesses’ responses to ITC’s annual survey of users.
One such business was Maneks Dis Ticaret, an Istanbul-
based trading company dealing in iron and steel products,
cement and metallic ores. Yilmaz Manisali, its director of
business development, said that the up-to-date trade data
in ITC tools, especially Trade Map, had helped the company
make profitable business decisions, bolstering sales while
minimizing costs.
‘ITC tools have been instrumental for us in the planning
stage – they have allowed us to identify our target markets
1
27. ITC INTERVENTIONS: DOING MORE, BETTER
ANNUAL REPORT 2016 25
In Ukraine‘s southern regions of Kherson, Mykolaiv and
Odessa, ITC brought together government authorities and
fruit and vegetable producers to remodel traditional value
chains and market linkages and revive the competitiveness
of local SMEs. More than 150 stakeholders, including 44
women, charted a roadmap to create and capture more
value. This roadmap is now being implemented by national
authorities with support from ITC.
In Qatar, which wants to cut its reliance on oil and gas, ITC
facilitated consultations among public- and private-sector
leaders to identify sectors with high export development
potential. This work also looked at the investment
requirements, business climate reforms and support
services required to stimulate entrepreneurship and realize
that potential. The resulting Strategic Trade Development
Roadmap details quick-win actions aimed at creating
employment opportunities through diversified trade within
the region and around the world.
Trade Facilitation
The Trade Facilitation Programme works with policymakers
in developing and least developed countries to implement
trade facilitation reforms aimed at reducing the cost of doing
business. It also partners with logistics operators and other
trade facilitation stakeholders to ensure that SMEs are able
to understand and comply with customs and other border
requirements.
Key results
6 countries ITC worked with ratified the
WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement
11 countries assisted to estimate needs
for technical and financial assistance to
implement TFA obligations
2 000 women in Burundi, Tanzania,
and Uganda joined ITC-backed network for
informal cross-border traders
Highlights
ITC contributed to the design and adoption of policy
recommendations for implementing the World Trade
Organization (WTO) Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) in
Curaçao, Dominica, Haiti, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines,
Suriname and the West African Economic and Monetary
Union (WAEMU). The WAEMU work was notable for the
consensus ITC helped the 15-member bloc reach on
implementing the TFA at a region-wide level (see case study).
A central plank of this assistance was the establishment of
inclusive inter-agency and public-private dialogue
processes to ensure that business perspectives factor into
the design of cross-border reforms, and that SMEs in
particular are empowered to understand and comply with
border requirements. In some cases this support involved
setting up or strengthening national trade facilitation
committees (NTFCs). These committees are required under
the TFA and bring together stakeholders such as border
agencies, logistics service providers and traders. They play
an important role in designing and monitoring trade
1.2. Site visit: Wood furniture producer, Liberia
21
28. ITC INTERVENTIONS: DOING MORE, BETTER
26 INTERNATIONAL TRADE CENTRE
facilitation implementation. ITC worked to ensure that the
private sector, especially SMEs, were represented on
NTFCs. ITC assisted Botswana, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea,
Senegal, Tajikistan and Ukraine in establishing or
strengthening such committees.
Three countries ITC had supported on TFA-related issues –
Afghanistan, Dominica and Senegal – ratified the TFA in
2016. In addition, ITC helped 11 countries estimate needs
and develop project proposals for the technical and
financial assistance they require to implement so-called
‘Category C’ obligations under the TFA.
To enhance the impact of its trade facilitation interventions,
ITC developed a network of partnerships with leading public
and private stakeholders, including the United Nations
Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the
United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE),
the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for
Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), Brazil’s Ministry of
Development Industry and Foreign Trade and the World
Economic Forum. Cooperative work has ranged from
technical training to the publication of materials on TFA
implementation.
In Burundi, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania,
more than 2,000 women informal cross-border traders
joined an ITC-backed network that serves as a vehicle for
disseminating knowledge about cross-border procedures,
increasing their ability to trade more safely and to formalize
and grow their businesses.
Supporting Trade Negotiations
The ITC Supporting Trade Negotiations Programme assists
business associations to articulate private-sector views and
influence policymakers to ensure that trade negotiations,
national policies and regulatory reforms reflect business
perspectives. The key aim is to contribute to policy
coherence and a more conducive business environment.
Key results
Supported Sudan’s preparation of
Memorandum of Foreign Trade Regime and
Legal Action Plan for WTO accession
Supported the Comoros in revamping
investment code
Assisted Tonga in drafting National Trade
Policy Framework
Highlights
In least developed countries (LDCs) acceding to the WTO,
ITC works to build capacity among businesses, TISIs and
governments to understand – and prepare to seize – the
opportunities presented by membership in the global trade
body. In 2016, ITC supported Sudan’s efforts to re-launch its
WTO bid by assisting the government to draft its
‘Memorandum of Foreign Trade Regime.’ This document, a
mandatory step in the accession process, was submitted to
the WTO Secretariat.
ITC also helped Sudan draft a legal action plan and an initial
offer of services market-opening commitments. In addition,
ITC worked to raise awareness about the implications of
membership within the Sudanese business community. In
1
1.2. Site visit: Fruit and vegetable farm, Qatar 3. A market in the Comoros
2 3
29. ITC INTERVENTIONS: DOING MORE, BETTER
ANNUAL REPORT 2016 27
Comoros, ITC worked with the government to bring its
investment code into alignment with international best
practices and prospective WTO obligations.
ITC in 2016 built on earlier work aimed at tackling non-tariff
measures (NTMs) impeding intraregional trade in the auto-
parts and beverage sectors within the Central European
Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA, see case study). ITC worked
with member governments and the CEFTA Secretariat to
overhaul competition laws and regulations as well as to curb
anti-competitive practices by private operators.
In the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS),
ITC followed up on earlier work with the OECS Commission
to complete a regulatory assessment of key services
sectors and produce a list of potential market-opening
commitments in its negotiations with trading partners.
In coordination with the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat,
ITC assisted Tonga to draft a preliminary National Trade
Policy Framework based on extensive public-private sector
consultations aimed at aligning Tonga’s policies with
enterprise supply chains.
In Pakistan, ITC contributed to enhancing the long-term
capacity of the country’s Competition Commission,
internally through the creation of a dedicated department to
training and research and externally through a partnership
to run courses on competition policy with the National
University of Science and Technology.
4
2016 Funders
Core funders
Canada, China, Finland, Germany, India, Ireland,
Sweden
Project-specific funders
Enhanced Integrated Framework, European Union,
Finland, France, Germany/Deutsche Gesellschaft für
Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, Italy,
Qatar, Standards and Trade Development Facility,
Switzerland, UN Conference on Trade and Development
(UNCTAD), UN Industrial Development Organization
(UNIDO), Western NIS Enterprise Fund
5
4. Workshop on Ukraine’s export strategy 5. Workshop on cross-border trade procedures, Burundi
30. 28 INTERNATIONAL TRADE CENTRE
CASE STUDY
Tackling non-tariff measures at
the regional level to improve the
business climate for trade
The challenge
Decades of progressive market-opening have lowered tariff
barriers around the world, with the result that non-tariff
measures (NTMs) now loom larger as a source of trade
frictions.
NTMs cover a wide range of policies such as technical
regulations, sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS),
quantitative restrictions, various fees and charges,
certification requirements and other conformity assessment
issues. Many of these policies are designed to protect
consumer safety and the health of humans, plants and
animals. Conforming to the demands of NTMs can imply
significant costs for traders – costs that weigh particularly
heavily on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in
developing countries.
Streamlining NTMs has become a major component of
national trade policy agendas, including in bilateral and
regional integration initiatives. Despite significant progress,
important challenges remain, in particular the harmonization of
procedures for the enforcement of NTMs, which themselves
can be a substantial source of uncertainty, costs and delays.
The response
ITC works to address NTMs on multiple fronts. Transparency
tools such as Market Access Map provide information on
the requirements of thousands of mandatory and private
standards. Business surveys reveal how companies in
developing countries encounter NTM-related obstacles
when seeking to trade across borders and shed light on
whether those competitiveness-sapping obstacles are the
result of bureaucratic procedures or the content of the
measures themselves. The survey results can in turn be
analysed to identify how regulatory and border agencies
can remove inefficiencies that inhibit small firms in priority
sectors from participating in the world economy but
contribute little to achieving public policy goals. ITC works
with governments and regional institutions to design and
implement solutions to smooth trade flows.
Building on the NTM surveys, ITC developed a three-step
methodology to address regulatory and procedural
obstacles to trade at the regional level. First, it works with
regional institutions and national governments to identify
priority sectors, regulations and value chains for intervention
based on the potential benefits that would result from
region-wide reforms. Next, they examine the underlying
causes of regulatory and procedural obstacles. The final
step is to design and implement plans to address regulatory
and procedural obstacles.
The results
In response to relatively low levels of intraregional trade and
investment, ITC has been working in regions including the
Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA), the Arab
states, and the Economic Community of West African States
(ECOWAS) to identify and eliminate non-tariff barriers.
In the CEFTA bloc over a 16-month period, ITC mobilized
private-sector lead firms and suppliers in the auto-parts and
beverage sectors to identify burdensome trade barriers and
articulate their concerns in a manner conducive to designing
policy and regulatory reforms to address them. Public-
private dialogue forged an informed consensus among
CEFTA stakeholders – companies and governments – on
what the most cumbersome NTMs were and how to
address them. (In the beverage sector, these included
discriminatory excise duties and the lack of mutual
recognition of quality certificates; in the auto sector, complex
customs documentation requirements were a particular
source of problems.)
CEFTA parties in 2016 introduced a raft of trade facilitation
procedures aimed at resolving these issues, pledging to
accord mutual recognition to each other’s legislation and
trade-related documentation and to eliminate the main
1
32. 30 INTERNATIONAL TRADE CENTRE
CASE STUDY
Leveraging WTO commitments
to boost intraregional trade
in West Africa
The challenge
Trading with one’s neighbours can be an important driver of
value addition and job creation irrespective of a country’s
level of development. But across much of the developing
world – especially in Africa – levels of intraregional trade are
low compared to those in Europe and North America. In the
West African Economic and Monetary Union, a regional
economic community comprising Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte
d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger and Togo, trade among
the bloc’s members in 2014 accounted for a mere 13% of
their total international commerce.
This situation is not for want of regional policy initiatives in
favour of integration. Like other regional economic
communities within Africa, the WAEMU countries (often
referred to by their French acronym, UEMOA) have taken
important steps to establish a common external tariff and
customs code with the ultimate goal of establishing a single
regional market.
Despite significant progress, however, companies in the
region have struggled to trade more with each other across
borders. A major reason for this is high trading costs.
According to the World Bank Doing Business – Trading
Across Borders indicators, conducting trade transactions in
the WAEMU region is 15% more expensive than the world
average and almost four times costlier than in advanced
economies. Weak physical infrastructure, together with the
high expenses and long delays associated with cross-
border operations, discourages intraregional trade.
To address these challenges, WAEMU members in 2013
launched an ambitious trade facilitation programme with a
view to ease intraregional goods trade by simplifying and
harmonizing cross-border procedures and requirements.
After World Trade Organization (WTO) members adopted
the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) in Bali in December
2013, the WAEMU secretariat and its member governments
decided to accelerate those efforts.
The response
Since early 2014, ITC has supported the WAEMU secretariat
and its member states’ pursuit of a regionally harmonized
and coordinated implementation of the TFA, with a view to
achieving economies of scale while establishing a more
predictable trading environment across the region. This has
involved working towards region-wide consensus among
public and private sector stakeholders from all WAEMU
member states on modalities for implementing the TFA.
Under the TFA, developing countries need to divide their
future obligations into three categories: Category A
commitments, which they already implement or will do so
immediately upon the agreement’s entry into force;
Category B commitments, for which they require additional
time; and Category C commitments, for which they require
both time and technical or financial assistance.
While most governments will implement the TFA at the
national level, ITC worked with WAEMU on an alternative
path: implementing selected Category B and Category C
measures region-wide, backed by a coordinated effort to
raise the technical and financial assistance WAEMU
members require.
Even for individual governments, categorizing TFA
obligations and quantifying technical assistance needs is
not straightforward as many developing countries have
sought and received external technical assistance for the
process. For the WAEMU bloc, ITC developed a conceptual
framework to help the secretariat and member states
identify measures suitable for a coordinated approach.
TFA obligations will be implemented regionally if they meet
the following criteria: one, a majority of WAEMU countries
place them in categories B or C; two, implementation would
require the regional legal framework to be amended; three,
they support the ‘corridor’ framework for regional integration;
and four, if money and resources could be saved by
implementing regionally instead of at the national level.
1
35. ITC INTERVENTIONS: DOING MORE, BETTER
ANNUAL REPORT 2016 33
In 2016, ITC worked intensively with 18 TISI clients, leading
to operational and managerial efficiency gains estimated to
result in $280 million in additional exports. It substantively
engaged with a further 105 TISIs, helping them remedy
specific weaknesses such as business-to-business (B2B)
capacity and other business generation activities. ITC also
reached additional clients through e-learning modules,
webinars, the tisibenchmarking.org platform and an
associated newsletter.
Feedback from clients demonstrates a high level of
satisfaction with ITC’s TISI performance improvement
support as 100% of surveyed beneficiaries said they would
recommend ITC services to other organizations.
In November ITC co-hosted, with Maroc Export, the 11th
Trade Promotion Organization Network World Conference
and Awards (WTPO) in Marrakesh, Morocco. More than 200
policymakers, business leaders and representatives from
over 80 trade and investment promotion organizations from
around the world attended the gathering.
1. Designing a performance roadmap with Mongolia’s National Chamber of Commerce and Industry 2. Workshop participants explore how to multiply
their TISIs’ impact, Zanzibar
21
2016 Funders
Core funders
Canada, China, Finland, Germany, India, Ireland,
Sweden
Project-specific funders
Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), One UN,
Saint Lucia
18
105
171
550+
Intensive
Multi-year engagement following
the AIM methodology
Substantive
Workshops, due diligence,
advisory support, etc.
Technical
Webinars, e-learning, conferences, self-service
benchmarking, technical publications
Light Touch
engages a large audience through newsletters,
media, publications, blogs, speaking opportunities
FIGURE 2 TISI clients approach and key outputs in 2016
36. 34 INTERNATIONAL TRADE CENTRE
CASE STUDY
Quantifying trade and investment
support institutions’ impact on
trade performance and GDP
The challenge
Trade and investment support institutions (TISIs) such as
chambers of commerce, business associations and export
promotion agencies play a critical role in enabling
businesses to access the information and networks they
need in order to succeed in international markets. For
smaller companies, especially in developing countries,
building expansive in-house capacity on trade-related
matters is unfeasible, making TISIs that much more
important. Nevertheless, TISIs around the world face
increasing demands from their stakeholders, especially
cash-strapped governments, to demonstrate that they are
providing value for money.
For the kinds of work TISIs do, precisely quantifying the
effects of their support to business clients is a challenge,
exacerbated by the difficulty of attributing each of the
different services they provide to particular impacts in terms
of increased trade and investment.
In addition to complicating their efforts to justify their
stakeholders’ investments and fees, these attribution issues
are part of a more fundamental challenge for TISIs: the
ability to understand the impact their various services
generate is a prerequisite for improving resource allocation
and shaping their service portfolios. Recognizing these
challenges, the network of European Trade Promotion
Organizations (ETPO) asked ITC to coordinate an impact
study to help them demonstrate the value they deliver.
ITC was well placed to answer the call, having for years
worked with TISIs in developing and transition economies to
support them in assessing, improving, and measuring their
effectiveness and resource efficiency. The three-step
process is dubbed ‘AIM for Results’.
The response
ITC invited a team of economists from the University of
Geneva to conduct the study. The study team used data
from three separate trade promotion organization (TPO)
surveys, two conducted by the World Bank in 2005 and
2010 and a 2014 survey conducted by ITC in partnership with
members of the ETPO network. In total, the database covered
94 countries with a special focus on 14 European TPOs.
The team developed an econometric methodology to
compare different TPOs and measure the impact of
changes in export promotion budgets on exports and GDP
per capita. It also identified the TPO characteristics –
whether governance, activities, funding level or funding
source – that lead to the highest returns.
In partnership with
INVESTING IN
TRADE PROMOTION
GENERATES REVENUE
1
of ADDITIONAL EXPORTS
spent on generates
$1
$87
EXPORT
PROMOTION
INCREASE IN GDP
$384
additional
37. ANNUAL REPORT 2016 35
The results
The resulting report, Investing in Trade Promotion Generates
Revenue, provided powerful evidence about how funding for
TPOs can increase exports and GDP.
The study estimated that each additional dollar spent on
helping companies to develop and improve their exports
can generate $87 worth of additional exports and a $384
boost to GDP. It broke new ground in academic literature on
the topic by showing that export promotion can have
positive spinoffs in terms of higher productivity, even in
non-exporting sectors.
In addition, the study showed that the managerial and
operational practices of TPOs matter for countries’ exports
as well as their broader economic performance. For
instance, practices such as having private-sector
representation on TPO boards; charging fees for services;
concentrating on a limited number of sectors and target
markets; and focusing on established exporters tend to be
associated with higher returns both in terms of exports and
GDP. The results also showed that investing in country
branding and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)
can help drive more rapid GDP growth.
Walter Koren, chief executive officer of Advantage Austria,
the country’s trade promotion agency, said the study
‘supports and strengthens our strong belief that trade
promotion organizations provide a very high return on
investment, help to develop a national economy and do
contribute significantly to GDP growth.’ Maroc Export,
Morocco’s trade promotion agency, has asked ITC to
conduct a similar study looking at its overall impact on
Morocco’s exports as well as at how different export
promotion programmes affect export results.
The future
The Investing in Trade Promotion Generates Revenue report
will be used as a reference to encourage further research.
ITC is committed to carrying out similar impact studies in
other regions and to working with independent research
organizations to develop and apply rigorous methodologies
to measure the value created by trade and investment
promotion organizations. The results of those studies will
shed light on policies and practices that agencies could put
in place to maximize their impact.
By continuing to collaborate with the research community
on impact measurement, ITC aims to enhance the impact of
its work to strengthen trade and investment promotion
organizations. This in turn bolsters the extent to which these
critical TISIs are able to contribute to SME trade success,
and through it to broad-based growth and job creation.
1. Investing in Trade Promotion Generates Revenue report 2.3. Workshop on improving performance measurement, Costa Rica
Funders
Finland, Germany
2 3
38. 36 INTERNATIONAL TRADE CENTRE
CASE STUDY
Bolstering Zimbabwe’s
infrastructure for standards
compliance and certification
The challenge
The ability to meet standards and technical regulations in
value chains and target markets has become a critical
determinant of whether businesses can succeed in
international trade.
However, for the vast majority of companies, especially
small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), compliance
and conformity certification cannot happen in isolation. A
well-functioning ecosystem of institutions and technical
infrastructure is vital for companies to seize the international
market opportunities presented by standards compliance.
This ecosystem ranges from national standards bodies,
which develop and promote standards; to testing and
inspection laboratories that verify whether products are
indeed compliant; certification bodies; and an array of
technical regulatory agencies. The work of these bodies is
critical for supporting enterprises to apply relevant
standards, meet export market regulations and prove to
trading partners that their products comply.
In many developing countries, however, quality-related
technical institutions are often limited by insufficient
resources, know-how and equipment. Testing facilities are
inadequate and conformity-assessment bodies are
frequently unrecognized in international markets. This
imposes high costs and burdensome, time-consuming
procedures on businesses that wish to obtain certification.
This in turn hampers trade and limits its potential
contribution to growth and socioeconomic development.
Zimbabwe is one such country. It faces multiple obstacles to
realizing its goal of expanding international trade and
making optimal use of opportunities afforded by regional
integration initiatives and the interim Economic Partnership
Agreement with the European Union. One of these is the
limited capacity of the country’s quality-related support
institutions. Without inspection, testing and certification
services that are accepted in export markets, whether within
the region or further afield, exporters are unable to
demonstrate compliance with relevant standards and
technical regulations, with the result that for them market-
opening agreements exist largely on paper.
Another hindrance for would-be exporters is that Zimbabwe’s
regulatory authorities often lack the technical capacity to
develop and implement technical regulations and standards
in line with the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreements
on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) and Technical
Barriers to Trade (TBT). The resulting misalignment with
regional and international standards also curbs Zimbabwean
companies’ ability to access foreign markets.
The response
ITC has worked to enhance the capacities of Zimbabwe’s
quality infrastructure, from its national standards body, the
Standards Association of Zimbabwe (SAZ), to the
laboratories that test and certify its export products,
particularly agricultural goods.
Trainers within Zimbabwean government departments for
research, agriculture, health and biotechnology were
equipped to educate SMEs about standards and complying
with European Union import requirements, in particular
European Commission directives setting out maximum safe
limits for residual levels of pesticide and veterinary
antibiotics in food products. In addition, officials from the
relevant ministries received training on WTO rules for health
and safety standards and technical regulations to equip
them to better help SMEs access foreign markets.
ITC worked with the SAZ to improve its certification schemes
for key international management standards. These
schemes certify entire companies as having world-class
management processes, whether for their quality
management system (ISO 9001), environmental
management practice (ISO 14001), or workplace health and
safety (OHSAS 18001). Having well-regarded management
system certificates serves as a credible signal that
1