Press releases

Export Supply and Value Chains Take Centre Stage on Day Two at WEDF 2012

16 October 2012
ITC News

With the world’s population recently surpassing the seven billion mark and on track over the next forty years to add two billion more, primarily in the developing world, optimizing developing countries’ export supply chains helps advance global food security while boosting interregional and intraregional trade flows, according to discussions at day two of the World Export Development Forum (WEDF).
“Poor infrastructure acts as a barrier to trade as much as import taxes and tariffs,” said Patricia Francis, Executive Director of ITC.  “But it also creates enormous post-harvest losses worldwide that negatively impact emerging market and developing country exporters’ ability to realize a return on the capital and effort invested to produce their goods.”
Estimates suggest that poor infrastructure — inadequate road, port and storage facilities, for example — reduces trade between and within emerging and developing regions, results in billions of dollars in losses to producers and contributes to higher food prices that disproportionately affect developing world consumers. 
Today’s WEDF discussions on export supply and value chains coincided with World Food Day, which drives awareness around food security themes, including critical trade- enablers like infrastructure development.
Additional themes highlighted at WEDF:
• Supply chain innovations
• Commodity markets
• Consumer-driven demand in growth markets
• Services sector exports and innovation
• Procurement and women-owned businesses 

WEDF 2012 concludes on Wednesday, 17 October. The full text of speeches made at the event are available on www.intracen.org/wedf. Additionally, ITC is live-streaming plenary sessions here and encouraging participation in conversations through Facebook,   Twitter and LinkedIn.
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