To spur a new era of trade growth, the UAE has entered into an agreement with the World Economic Forum (WEF) to bolster a new Trade Tech Initiative. The initiative is designed to accelerate the digitization of international supply chains, enhance customs procedures, and improve developing countries’ access to the global trading system.

The agreement will leverage the UAE’s efforts to deliver the initiative’s four key components: a global forum to gather trade, industry, and technology leaders to share best-practice; an annual research report into the trade tech landscape, real-life applications, and emerging trends; a regulatory sandbox to enable companies and startups to experiment with trade-tech innovations; and an incubator for promising startups in the trade tech space.

“The Trade Tech Initiative is a crucial step in modernizing global trade, using the Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR 4.0) tools to reduce the cumbersome and inefficient paper-based processes that continue to dominate supply chains. The UAE has emerged as a vocal champion of trade innovation and, at a time when global supply chains are still recovering from the impact of the pandemic, we believe it is essential to harness the benefits of advanced technology to catalyze global trade,” said Dr. Thani Al Zeyoudi, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Trade. 

From using artificial intelligence to automate customs processes and warehouse management to deploying blockchain to revolutionize trade finance, cross-border payments, and know-your-customer procedures, the potential for enhancement is limitless, added Al Zeyoudi.

Furthermore, Mohamed Al Shorafa, chairman of the Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development, said, “The UAE has a strong track record in developing and deploying innovative technologies to enhance efficiencies in the trade process. Forming an important complementary extension to the federal system, Abu Dhabi’s continuously evolving trade facilitation solutions simplify procedures, reduce time and cost, and increase trade volumes. A typical example is our Advanced Trade & Logistics Platform, the one-stop shop for all trade operations.”

He added that the emirate utilizes advanced technology, such as AI-powered systems, to enable traders to facilitate their import and export transactions.