Digital Trade in the Post-COVID World

Chinese Taipei - 17 January 2022

Trade topics: Digital Trade, COVID 19

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed global digital inequalities that produce real economic and social consequences. It underscored the crucial role of knowledge assets and services to the functioning of global value chains, and the embeddedness of information technology infrastructure in modern trade in goods, services, and intangibles such as IPRs. The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the manner in which inadequate digital infrastructure, the lack of on-line payments systems, and uneven distribution of human expertise constrained trade in many developing and least-developed countries.

The conference will focus on five issues which the international community needs to address to ensure that digital trade in the post-COVID world contributes to global sustainable development: the complexity and diversity of digital trade; the importance of digital trade for sustainable economic development; digital work and labour regulation; intellectual property rights and digital trade; and investment in digital infrastructure.

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