The World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Trade Centre (ITC) on December 11, 2017, launched an on-line platform for market intelligence for cotton products. The portal is believed to be helpful for the cotton producers, trades and policymakers to better harness market opportunities on the sector.
The Cotton Portal also unveiled at the WOT’s 11th Ministerial Conference at the Buenos Aires, that is will contribute to a better and well efficient cotton trading system by providing an improved transparency and accessibility to the trade related information for the cotton products and related information for daily activities of the cotton producers, trades and policy makers.
“Today’s launch is an important addition to our efforts in helping the cotton community achieve their development goals,” said WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo. “By gathering all the relevant information, it means that we can better monitor the implementation of the Market Access commitments made by members in Nairobi.”
On the other hand the ITC Executive Director Arancha González said: “The Cotton Portal will enable cotton producers and traders to harvest greater benefits from increased participation in global trade, particularly for least developed countries. By making the sector more transparent, businesses will have easier access to trade and market intelligence, allowing them to add additional value to their exports.”
As briefed by the experts this portal is specially designed for the importers, exporters, the investors and the trade supporting institutions to search better business opportunities and that of the market requirements for cotton producers.
It is comprehensive single entry platform for all cotton specific information that is available at the WTO and ITC database on market access, country-specific business contacts, trade statistics and the information related to development assistance-related. It will also offer links to relevant documents, webpages and to other organizations active in the cotton sector.
Cotton is one of the world’s most actively traded commodities. It is also a product of vital importance to the economic development and poverty reduction strategies for a number of developing economies, and particularly the least developed amongst them.
Four African cotton-producing countries — Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali — proposed a Sectoral Initiative on Cotton in 2003. Since then, cotton has been discussed as a specific topic in the WTO. The 2015 Nairobi Ministerial Decision on Cotton contains provisions on improving market access for least-developed countries, eliminating export subsidies, and the efforts to be made to reform domestic support. It also underlines the importance of effective assistance to support the cotton sector in developing countries.
The launch of the Cotton Portal delivers on a key commitment of the Nairobi decision to identify and examine market access barriers, including tariff and non-tariff barriers for cotton products, particularly those exported by least-developed countries.
