The situation surrounding the future of trade around the world as of today warrants its increasing disputes. The global economic interdependence nature according to the World Economic Forum (2020) is being challenged due to changes in politics, biodiversity, economics, and rampant technological advancements. This has necessitated different countries to come together and make reforms based on their own preferred rules that strongly emphasizes public and private corporation. The different countries according to the World Economic Forum (2020) believe that the public and the private corporation are appreciating the global community. This is due to the increasing investment and overall trade as the products and services are issued to both public and private sectors.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) platform provides an opportunity to engage different forms in shaping the future of trade and global interdependence. The World Economic Forum (2020, 0:50- 0:55) says that “these forms are brought about by returns from a wide range of industries ranging from logistics and transport industries, manufacturing services industries, technology, and financial services.” In addition, the WEF constitutes about two-thirds of the G20 countries and vital international organizations that focus on trade and investment (World Economic Forum, 2020). These works towards pushing forward a clear comprehension of the future of trade, how many nations are to adapt, and how to avail a conducive and enabling environment for trade.
The WEF has come up with an e-commerce initiative that acts on searching for the framework, best practices, and areas of good industrial standards. It has acted on this initiative and piloted some of the ideas through a partnership with the WTO secretariat (World Economic Forum, 2020). To shape a new agenda that can move faster, the WEF does this in three main dimensions. According to the World Economic Forum (2020), the first dimension is availing private, public, and multidisciplinary working groups aimed at improving, updating, and making fair various ideas. The second dimension is the practice of trade which considers global value chain practices and various nations’ enabling environment policies. Lastly, there is the technology that is shaped by industrial revolutions thereby increasing trade investment.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is known for regularly engaging business and political leaders from all over the world for a series of discussions and dialogue about major social and economic issues affecting the world. As stated in the video, the WEF relies on the influence of powerful people around the world both in the public and private sectors. This is to make decisions that are beneficial to the whole world as the WEF itself doesn’t have the unconventional power to make decisions for the global community. Meetings by WEF commence through the introduction of new ideas and trends to the public and WEF members to be discussed. These then form the basis for making decisions that are bound to influence the corporates and public sectors.
Especially now that the Covid-19 pandemic isn’t sparing any nation, I concede that the future of trade and investment is at stake. This is if measures to restore livelihoods, secure economic recovery, and enable green and sustainable development goals aren’t acted upon. The increasing demand for new industries and the incorporation of new technology is reshaping the global value chains. This initiative aims at balancing goods and services trade practices to remove the disparity in their value systems as services sell more in global trade than goods. On the e-commerce initiative, refreshing trading policies, expanding internet connectivity, upgrading logistics, and managing big data measures should be on the top list to achieve e-commerce trade.
References
World Economic Forum. (2020). How are the Forum and partners shaping the future of trade and global economic interdependence? [Video]. Web.