Hanne Melin of eBay’s Public Policy Lab recently chaired a roundtable discussion at the World Trade Symposium in London on new trade models for increasing small business trade participation.  The World Trade Symposium is a platform for transformation in global trade, bringing together business, policy, and technology leaders to seek innovative ways for converging trade, finance, technology and people to secure long-term economic growth and drive financial inclusion. It formed in 2016 through a collaboration between Misys and the Financial Times and is led by the World Trade Board.  Annie Lennox, singer, songwriter, activist and philanthropist, provided the opening keynote on global inequality and sustainable trade. 

Hanne led an hour-long discussion with a group of experts in trade and financing. Setting the scene, Hanne reminded the participants that micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) dominate most country’s enterprise populations, but are underrepresented in trade relative to large firms.  She then described the eBay Public Policy Lab’s research into MSMEs using the online commerce platform to expand retail operations internationally and concluded that: (1) Increasing the participation of MSMEs in trade is about large numbers and scalable solutions; and (2) The platform-enabled trade model is one such scalable solution capable of supporting a meaningful number of small businesses.

Hanne set the group an ambition goal – to increase by 10 times the number of exporters in any country – and framed the discussion around two questions: (1) how would a scalable export support program look? and, (2) how to facilitate effective market access in developed markets for developing market firms and goods?  The experts discussed how a country, at any stage of development, could encourage “supply” (i.e. international trade participation) in large numbers by raising awareness, leveraging education, and using online portals. They also talked about facilitating “demand” (i.e. ensuring effective access to customers) by rethinking taxation structures in developed markets, addressing logistic barriers, and the need for local marketing.

Hanne will be condensing the group discussion into action points, which will feed into the post event report and be taken forward by the World Trade Board before the 2018 Symposium.