BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC) — The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) says greater evidence-based trade policy is on the region’s horizon as member countries are set to benefit from a recently approved project.

In a  release, the CDB says over US$165,000 has been allocated for the bank and the World Trade Organization (WTO) Statistics Training Programme, a trade focused capacity building regional activity set to modernise the production, compilation and dissemination and use of data in national statistics and customs offices, and ministries of trade.

“The bank is pleased to support this initiative which will assist in deepening Caribbean trade and integration and further support development outcomes,” said CDB’s Director of Economics, Ian Durant.

He added that increased capacity and technical expertise, and enhanced cross-agency partnerships in the collection, compilation, and dissemination of trade and tariff data will undoubtedly improve the design of related strategies and policies and advance achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“CDB recognises the significance of establishing and expanding our strategic relationship with the WTO to further a shared commitment to fostering economic development and trade expansion,” he said.

In 2022, CDB and WTO signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to support countries on various international trade matters, capacity building in trade and statistics, and collaborating on knowledge products in the areas of tourism, education, culture and entertainment, public policy support, and innovation.

Both institutions also pledged to explore intersections of trade policy, climate change and women’s participation in international trade focused on achieving gender equality.

The new programme, which is underpinned by the MOU, will fund capacity-building workshops intended to advance the production of high-quality, comparable, national and intraregional statistics in the emerging area of digital trade. It will also enable and facilitate timely and modernised reporting of trade data and notifications.

According to the CDB’s Statistician Dindial Ramrattan, the successful execution will result in “enhanced institutional and technical capacity of regional and national statistics offices and trade agencies to report on trade and tariff statistics, in a timely, relevant, and suitable form to national, regional, and international stakeholders”.

The partnership with the WTO augurs well for the region, supporting efforts to harmonise standards, and strengthen governance and innovation. The bank continues to build on earlier interventions with the InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB), Statistics Canada and the World Bank which helped address the paucity of trade statistics in certain areas.

These deficiencies limited the region’s reporting on existing and emerging areas such as detailed services, small and medium-sized businesses, creative industries, and bilateral trade flows.

The programme will commence in early 2025 with tailored training sessions to increase collaboration between statistics offices and principal trade data producers, through a clearly defined and effective administrative process for data exchange.

“Through this offering, we hope to significantly advance the production of high quality, comparable, national, and intra-regional statistics; establish a cohesive and coherent architecture in the production, processing, and dissemination of statistics and enable and facilitate the development and sharing of innovative methods, tools, and technologies in the production and dissemination processes in the Caricom (Caribbean Community) Statistical System,” Durant said.