As the Executive Director of the GTPA I have worked in international trade for over a decade, focused on supporting SMEs to build their capacity and capability to engage in global trade. During my time as the CEO of the ECA it was our goal to support SME’s to successfully compete on the global stage. This was achieved through the support of the Government and the private sector. At the ECA we engaged in activities such as skills development, research, the development of online tools as well as trade policy and advocacy.

It has been widely researched and broadly acknowledged that SMEs and micro-enterprises are important drivers of economic value-creation around the world, whether in developing markets or OECD economies. Similarly, the character of international trade as an engine of growth was axiomatic for decades prior to the global crisis.

The “TPP-11” has finally moved forward under a new agreement to be known as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, with talks finalised in Japan overnight. Canada is back on board and the agreement is on track to be signed in March this year.

Happy New Year and all very best wishes to you and yours from the ITAC and the GTPA Team, and here’s hoping that all who celebrated over the past weeks have had an enjoyable Holiday Season!

In the New Year I will be moving on to head up the Global Trade Professionals Alliance (GTPA). Over the years a group of us explored different avenues in which companies and the community of service providers that support them could obtain international certification to recognise their competency in the field of global trade. We could find no pathway in which there was a global standard (which I found rather strange), particularly as we advocate for the harmonisation of global standards in other sectors.

GTPA is a new not-for-profit, membership-based organisation connecting individuals and organisations to a trusted network with recognised capabilities that power supply chains and their communities around the world.