International Trade and Finance

Exports by several Bangladeshi IT companies have risen by over a fifth following their participation in a business matchmaking scheme run by the Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS).

In recent years, more and more companies have realized that proficient management of ecological and social aspects of business models can increase incomes. In fact, with a view towards economic sustainability, companies can significantly enhance their economic value and standing of their brands, and as such gain competitive advantage.

For the first time the International Trade Centre (ITC) held its annual World Export Development Forum (WEDF) in Africa in 2014. On 15-17 September more than 1,000 delegates from across the world came to Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, to discuss how trade can spur development.

The Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) is the first negotiation focused exclusively on updating international standards since the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) more than 20 years ago. It promises to reshape the way of conducting services trade and has the potential to add US$ 3 trillion to global economic output.

Sanning the globe in countries ranging from Ethiopia and Mongolia to Papua New Guinea to Peru, beneficiaries of the ITC Women and Trade textiles and garments project attended a capacity building workshop at Parsons The New School for Design in New York City on 18-27 June. Joined by Indian artisans from ITC’s Global Platform network, as well as representatives from partner institutions, talented women from the textile industry worked closely with faculty technicians, students and industry specialists to develop joint items, as well as individual collections. The collections will feature in the London-New York Festival (LDNY Festival) opening ceremony on 22 September, at parallel fashion shows in both cities.

Integrating least-developed countries (LDCs), most of them located in Africa, into the global economy is one of the central challenges to fostering stability and spreading prosperity more widely across the globe.

Services are central to everything an economy produces, exports, and invests in. As such, an inefficient services sector represents an unwelcome burden on economic performance. The growing acceptance of this central economic reality has fuelled unprecedented autonomous liberalization in services markets around the globe in recent decades.

Few so-called superfoods have received as much attention as quinoa in recent years. Originating from and grown mostly in South America, it is hailed for its nutritional value and for being easily cultivated in different climatic and agricultural conditions. For these reasons quinoa has been named by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as the world’s most promising crops in establishing global food security.