G20 Trade Ministers meet in Jaipur
G20 urges ITC and partners to leverage technological upgrading for small business’ access to market information, through the Global Trade Helpdesk.
Trade Ministers met in Jaipur, India on 23-25 August to build consensus in the ongoing G20 discussions. During the meeting, the Executive Director of the International Trade Centre (ITC) Pamela Coke-Hamilton said that, “ITC was very pleased to have accompanied the members throughout this year’s G20 journey under the Presidency of India on an extremely fruitful and rewarding journey: the topics were highly relevant and focused on some of the most pressing issues in international trade and investment.”
Ministers held discussions around five priority areas of trade: growth and prosperity, trade and resilient global value chain, integrating micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in global trade, logistics for trade, and World Trade Organization (WTO) reforms.
Among its action points, the G20 Trade Ministers adopted a Jaipur Call for Action for Enhancing MSMEs’ Access to Information. This outcome is essentially about using the latest technologies to upgrade the Global Trade Helpdesk, a joint initiative of the ITC, the WTO and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), to provide analytical, user-friendly and easily accessible trade information for MSMEs. ITC has been designated by the G20 to work on a detailed implementation plan to upgrade the Global Trade Helpdesk.
The multi-agency Global Trade Helpdesk Initiative creates a single digital entry point to information from across 11 agencies and 14 databases to simplify market research for small businesses. The platform was launched in June 2020, and provides information in six languages (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and Arabic) to users from over 200 economies. Further development of the platform to incorporate new technologies and data, will help extend its reach and simplify the trade journey for more small businesses.
About the Global Trade Helpdesk
The Global Trade Helpdesk is an initiative of the of the International Trade Centre, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and the World Trade Organization with the participation of the African Development Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the International Chamber of Commerce, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, the World Customs Organization, the World Bank Group and the World Intellectual Property Organization. It brings together key data and resources from across partner agencies to simplify market research for MSMEs with the financial support of the Swiss Secretariat of Economic Affairs (SECO).
