As the Ukraine-Russia crisis impacts the economy and trade and global supply chain challenges persist, businesses can tap an integrated digital platform to seize emerging opportunities, diversify market risks, and access overseas markets.

“It is an exciting time in trade and there are a lot of emerging opportunities and many risks but we have to make the most where we can,” Anna Jankowska-Ericksson, market analyst at the International Trade Centre (ITC), said in a webinar.

Ericksson said World Trade Organization (WTO) members of the Informal Working Group on micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) have endorsed the Global Trade Helpdesk as a key source to help firms access market intelligence.

“We want to evaluate the demand on the export potential per product. Then, have a look at what is the tariff space and what are the regulatory requirements in the target market,” she said.

“Then we can also consider market niches so things we are looking at private standards like ecological products or fair trade products and lastly, we will see available information on partners for financing, trade and promotion,” she added.

Through www.GlobalTradeHelpdesk.org, firms particularly can have seamless access to trade statistics, import data, information on export potential, tariffs and rules of origin, regulatory requirements, export and import procedures, as well as contact details for potential buyers, trade finance providers, and support services.

“This will give us a great amount of opportunities depending on how big our production size and where we want to also factor in the market,” Ericksson said.

She said the platform is currently available in English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Russian and Portuguese.

“But we do hope to be able to also expand to other languages in the future,” she added.