Trends Transforming Trade

Following the unprecedented ramifications of the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent uncertainty over both the safety and viability of holding physical events, Global Trade Review is delighted to announce that GTR Asia 2020, the world’s largest trade finance gathering, will this year be taking place virtually, on September 8-10.

This exciting new initiative, combining a mixture of live-streamed and pre-recorded content and unrivalled networking via GTR’s dedicated virtual event platform, will offer the chance to hear the latest developments from experts on the many challenges faced across the industry, as well as the chance to connect with speakers, sponsors and attendees alike across the 3 days.

In 2020, every business – however small – needs to be digitally enabled to some extent. Whether it’s having a virtual shopfront in the form of a website and a fully functioning eCommerce solution, an automated production line, or even just email and a mobile phone, technology is an intrinsic part of the way in which we do business. This week’s “Business Health Check” session is a small business technology primer.

As Australia celebrates National Reconciliation Week, the Global Trade Professionals Alliance (GTPA) recognises the contribution Indigenous Australians have made to Australia’s culture, identity and achievements.

Reconciliation is about a mutual strengthening of relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians to create a more just, equitable and reconciled Australia. Trade and commerce play an integral role in this.

The world of trade looks set to be another of the many casualties of the coronavirus pandemic, as international banks reassess the risks faced by exporters, warehouses fill up with delayed shipments of goods that retailers are no longer able to sell, and access to dollar liquidity dwindles. Lisa McAuley, CEO of GTPA will be joining an esteemed panel to discuss.

The creative industries contribute around $112 billion to the Australian economy, and employ over 640 000 people. The creative industries generate substantial Australian exports, and globally the sector accounts for 7% of the world’s GDP. COVID-19 and the measure implemented to curb its spread has had a devastating effect on the creative sector, with theatres, art galleries, music venues and museums all closed or attendance number drastically curtailed.

Inclusive trade refers to the principle that all levels of society should gain from increased trade. It promotes the inclusion of groups that may currently be marginalised or challenged in their ability to engage with international trading opportunities.

The GTPA is putting the finishing touches on an Inclusive Trade White Paper that will produce practical recommendations on how capacity building and standard setting can facilitate a more inclusive international trading ecosystem, with particular reference to four groups: gender, youth, diaspora and indigenous communities.

To coincide with the launch of the Inclusive Trade White Paper, the GTPA is excited to announce a “Festival of Inclusive Trade”.

We are pleased to share this first piece in a series exploring resilient supply chains for a post-Covid world, and welcome readers’ insights and perspective as they conduct business across regions and industries. Niels Strazdins is Head of Trade Policy at the Global Trade Professionals Alliance (GTPA). Professor Robert Handfield is Bank of America University Distinguished Professor of Supply Chain Management at North Carolina State University, and Director of the Supply Chain Resource Cooperative. Professor Ian George is the owner of ProPar Consulting Ltd.

How critical is cash? Some would argue Cash is King. That the Cashflow Statement says much more about the health of a business than it gets credit for. Accountants and investment analysts will look at this with a slightly different lens and priority, but most SMEs, anywhere in the world, live or die by cash.

The next session in the GTPA’s “Business Health Check” series is focused on exactly that – “Cash Management and Supply Chain Finance (SCF) during COVID-19”.

Following the unprecedented ramifications of the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent uncertainty over both the safety and viability of holding physical events, Global Trade Review is delighted to announce that GTR Asia 2020, the world's largest trade finance gathering, will this year be taking place virtually, on September 8-10.

Collins is the owner of ideas generator and actuator, Rex Ideas. She is also the Asia & Africa Director for the Global Trade Professionals Alliance (GTPA).

The global COVID-19 pandemic has impacted people, business and societies in new and profound ways. Acknowledging the challenges ahead, the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada and the Global Trade Professional Association (GTPA) joined forces to help business communities and governments alike navigate the future and improve trade and investment governance that help the world get back on its feet.

As economies slowly emerge from COVID-19 lockdowns, business is taking the first tentative steps towards normal operations. And now, more than ever, there is a need to take stock and revise business plans and strategies to ensure both recovery and future growth.

Toward a more just and inclusive trading future.

In July the GTPA will be launching a new white paper on Inclusive Trade which will recognise the important role that Inclusive Trade can play in economies around the world so that the gains from trade flow to all members of society equally.

The impact of servicification on global supply chains in the ASEAN region: dynamics, restrictions, and policy implications

International trade in services, especially via exports from emerging markets, is increasingly being channelled through the embedding of services in the export of goods. These goods include intermediate products, which are elements of Global Value Chains (GVCs).

Deadline for submissions: 31 August 2020

The Jean Monnet Network; Trade & Investment in Services Associates (TIISA) brings together leading academics across Europe, Asia and Australia and key institutions - Sussex University, University of Adelaide, Örebro University, National Tsing Hua University, Utrecht University, University of International Business and Economics, Chinese University of Hong Kong, World Trade Institute in research on domestic regulation and global governance of services trade and investment flows.

Collins Rex is the Asia/ Africa Director for the GTPA who has owned and operated her own very successful businesses on two continents. In her professional capacity she assists clients across a range of international marketing, product development and communications areas, helping them get maximum return on their marketing investment. Collins is passionate about seeing small business do better business, and do it on the global stage!

Join us for the next session in our Business Health Check series.

Join our resident marketing expert, Collins Rex, for a lively discussion of the basic elements of digital marketing.

If you’re mystified by terms like SEM, SEO, PPC and remarketing, this session will lift the veil and put you in a better position to make informed decisions regarding your digital marketing strategy.

These online webinars will allow you to meet other business operators ‘virtually’ for expert-moderated interactive online panel discussions. Here you can raise questions on issues you might be facing and as a global community we will mobilise our collective experience and expertise to listen and try to provide practical assistance.

The Global Trade Professionals Alliance (GTPA) and International Trade of the University of Adelaide (IIT) commends and shares the course of action delineated in the Statement on COVID-19 by APEC Ministers Responsible for Trade issued in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on 05 May 2020.

The COVID-19 crisis has radically changed the way we interact, both for business and personally. With travel off the cards for the foreseeable future, we’re all having to make peace with finding virtual ways to run our businesses, interact with our clients and colleagues, and even keep in touch with those we hold dear. Unfortunately, many of us are not using the virtual mechanisms at our disposal effectively or efficiently.

Russell Wiese heads Hunt & Hunt Lawyers' Customs and Global Trade Team. For the past 15 years he has specialised in commercial and regulatory issues associated with international supply chains. His clients are importers, exporters, freight forwarders and customs brokers. In particular, Russell assists clients with commercial agreements, dispute resolution, customs compliance and transport contracts. He is the current chair of the Australian Law Counsel Customs and International Transactions Committee.

Opinion of:

Lisa McAuley, CEO of GTPA

Dr Tomás Quesada, VP for Research and Policy of GTPA

The benefits of integrated economies have been visible in the handling of the pandemic itself

The world’s economy is facing its hardest prospect since the Great Depression. The International Monetary Fund projects a sharp contraction of the global economy of -3 percent for 2020. Global trade has been particularly affected due to supply chains disruptions, a fall in domestic consumption and investment, a reduction in the number of working hours, and the imposition of non-tariff barriers by governments. Protectionist measures already evident before the virus outbreak have now exacerbated. According to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), global trade is expected to fall by between 13% and 32% in 2020, and it is likely to fall harder in sectors with complex value chains.

The Institute for International Trade (IIT) invites you to join them for an interactive webinar with the Trade and Investment Research Network (TIRN) on the G20's role in reforming industrial subsidies.

GTDW,now into its 19th edition, provides a connecting platform to global trade stakeholders to explore opportunities to facilitate and increase sustainable and seamless cross border trade and to detect and counter illicit trade by:

• Collaborating and linking existing initiatives

• Sharing resources and best practices

• Identifying commonalities and points of convergence

• Discovering emergent and interoperable technologies and innovation

• Initiating recommendations to overcome threats and challenges

• Facilitating closed door G2G, B2B, B2G meetings

As the impacts of COVID-19 continue to be felt throughout our industry and the world, our priority as always is the health and well-being of our trainees, staff and clients as well as our industry and the broader community we serve. We remain committed to supporting you during this difficult period and helping you transition back to more normal operations when the time is right.

Tuesday, May 5 | 10:00 am EDT

You’re invited to join us for the next event in our virtual conversation series: Supply Chain Revolution on Tuesday, May 5 at 10 am EDT.

GTPA is pleased to announce a slight change to our Business Health Check session for the 6th May. We will now be joined by Russell Wiese who heads Hunt & Hunt Lawyers' Customs and Global Trade.

The GTPA is pleased to announced an alliance with Raised Hand, a new initiative created by a previous work friend of the GTPA team.

No one business, and certainly no MSME, needs to navigate these rather stormy waters alone

As these lines are being written, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) around the world are closing their operations. No one business, and certainly no MSME, needs to navigate these rather stormy waters alone.While the global business landscape is changing quite rapidly, we are confident that the global business environment will eventually stabilise. In the meantime, businesses’ capacity to survive will depend on their ability to innovate the ways in which they communicate, manage their business, and engage customers.

As part of the Mohammed bin Rashid Initiative for Global Prosperity GTPA will be presenting an online Ted-Style talk in May to discuss this topic.

Ian George is the Owner of ProPar Consulting Ltd a procurement and supply management consultancy specialising in organisational transformation and leadership development. Owner of IP based on academic rigour grounded in consulting practice. Prior to this Ian was the Head of Strategy and Process Development, Philips Electronics Eindhoven, The Netherlands 2000-2002, a global organisation covering six divisions from medical devices, body care and entertainment to silicon chips. Responsible for €16bn spend administered by 2600 staff across 93 offices and Supplier Development Senior Manager, BMW Group Birmingham, UK and South Carolina, USA.

Rob Handfield is the Bank of America University Distinguished Professor of Supply Chain Management at North Carolina State University, and Director of the Supply Chain Resource Cooperative. He also serves as Faculty Lead for the Manufacturing Analytics group within the International Institute of Analytics, and is on the Faculty for Operations Research Curriculum at NC State University.

By Professor Peter Draper - Institute for International Trade

If ever the G20, the self-styled apex forum for international economic cooperation, needed to step up to the plate it is now. However, while it did so for the 2009 London Summit — in the eye of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) — it is highly unlikely to this time. It is also not clear what the definition of success is, unlike the GFC when the core objective was to save Western financial systems from collapse. Each G20 country is correctly focused on managing its own health trajectory, with little policy bandwidth left to devote to international economic cooperation.

This week we will be discussing Managing supply chain risks as part of our online business health check series. We are delighted to be joined this week by supply chain experts: Dr Robert Handfield from the United States of America and Dr Ian George from the United Kingdom.

In the past few months, we’ve all added a string of new acronyms and terms to our business vocabulary. WFH (work from home), BYOD (bring your own device), and FoW (future of work) have entered into everyday usage, while “asynchronous/synchronous communication”, “distributed team/work”, “cloud work”, and others, are gaining mainstream traction.

As part of the maintaining a healthy business in times of global crisis. Yesterday’s session covered slowed business and increased marketing. The forum covered how to see slowed business as an opportunity to spend more time communicating and building a future customer base. You need to do more now, not less! Whether it’s doing what you’ve always done, or something different, the market must know if your business is going to survive this crisis.

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As the world grapples with COVID-19, the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) has issued two guidance publications to help governments and regulators deal with emerging trade finance disruptions.

Friday 24 April 2020

8:00 am EST | 2:00 pm CET | 5:30 pm IST | 8:00 pm SGT

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Join us for the free webinar on Thursday, April 16th at 2:30pm EDT.

Every sector of the economy is struggling to understand how to continue given the impact of the Coronavirus on their business enterprises. Workers are now communicating through remote conferencing services due to shelter-at-home orders, and anxiety levels are rising as the economic future remains uncertain.

As part of the maintaining a healthy business in times of global crisis, this session covered making the most of business down time.

Business disruptions caused by COVID-19 are affecting many people’s ability to fulfill their obligations under commercial contracts. In some cases, Force Majeure contract clauses may provide relief from the performance of impeded contractual obligations during the pandemic-related disruptions.