Interesting perspectives by World Economic Forum on how technology is transforming global trade.
Digitalization is the key to unlocking trade potential post COVID-19 and harnessing Fourth Industrial Revolution innovations for the Great Reset.
Tradetech and innovative solutions for trade facilitation are already being piloted successfully.
For example, drones used for underwater inspection and port infrastructure maintenance already show how the acceleration of a tech-ready mindset coming out of the crisis could be turned into trade facilitation’s opportunity of the century.
The pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital technologies. Telehealth services, including remote clinical services offered by telemedicine, is on course to top one billion interactions by the year’s end. E-commerce platforms and online retailers will likely see an 18% increase in sales by the end of the year even as overall retail sales decline. As the pandemic pushes more retail sales online, so has the surge in B2C parcel volume with FedEx and UPS reporting daily volumes at and exceeding “peak” holiday volumes.
Resistance to tech across many sectors is certainly waning and international trade is no exception. While much of international trade operations are still paper-based, the ongoing digitization efforts have raised global GDP by 10.1 percent in the past decade. According to the World Trade Organization (WTO), international trade costs declined by 15 percent between 1996 and 2014 and new technologies play a key role in further reductions.
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