A new Global Trade Data Portal produced by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) provides access to real-time data on trade, allowing users to monitor supply chain activities and providing advance warning of potential disruptions.
This information can be helpful in determining appropriate policy action, the WTO suggests.
Responding to disruptions in a timely manner and better understanding the functioning of complex value chains requires timely and detailed data, it explains, which are now more accessible thanks to new information and communication technologies.
The new Portal, which can be found HERE, provides, for example, real-time insights into maritime grain trade based on cargo-tracking data supplied by global trade analytics platform Kpler.
In response to growing global concerns about food security, the WTO has worked with the International Grain Council (IGC) to launch a new dashboard mainly focused on wheat. The dashboard provides comprehensive bi-weekly updates on international sea-borne trade in wheat, which constitutes more than 80% of total traded volumes.
The Portal includes an interactive grain and oilseeds dashboard updated every three hours that displays short-term trade trends in a variety of crops such as wheat, corn, barley and soybeans. It also offers visualisation tools based on WTO trade statistics and tariff data as well as a list of freely accessible sources for trade-related statistics and data from other organisations.
“Data are the foundation of informed decision-making,” WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said. “We need timely data to support timely policy action and rulemaking.”
Further dashboards will be developed in the coming months, she went on, with the objective of allowing users to monitor in real time how trade is evolving and helping WTO members better address the challenges facing global trade today.
