Large companies everywhere tend to be more productive than small ones. But the gap in productivity is far wider in developing countries.
Through e-commerce, women have found a means to jump over cultural and traditional lack of available time for remunerated activities.
African pressure has led the E.U. to rethink part of its agricultural subsidy programme.
Many African smallholder farmers did not share in the 'green revolution' productivity gains driven by modern seeds and techniques, irrigation, and greater fertilizer use in Asia and Latin America in the 1960s.
ITC works to help firms in poor countries become more competitive and overcome the barriers that are keeping their goods and services out of international markets.
Women are the most underutilized 'resource' in the world economy.
While tourism is often resource-intensive, it is a major driver of poverty reduction in developing countries.
Inward-looking unilateral trade policies invite retaliation.
Jobs are the main channel through which people share in - or are left out of - economic growth.
I have seen African countries negotiate bilaterally and within the WTO. African countries come to the WTO prepared and defend their interests with vigour.
In my job, as head of the International Trade Centre, I have the privilege to meet entrepreneurs from across the world almost on a daily basis.
Economic policy that adheres to the tenets of orthodoxy while failing to deliver for large sections of society is doomed to fail.
You must stand up for multilateralism. You must make trade great again.
Responsive governments committed to improving the broader trade facilitation and business environment can help companies of all sizes by improving infrastructure: roads, transportation, ports, information and communication technology, and electricity.
Around the world, it is much more difficult for women than for men to run a successful business. Even when laws are not explicitly biased against them, companies owned and operated by women often face discrimination every step of the way, from obtaining finance to finding customers.
Exporting firms are more productive and pay higher wages than their domestically focused counterparts, especially in places like Sub-Saharan Africa. If firms manage to thrive in world markets, they tend to increase their productivity even more.
In their pursuit of growth and diversification, African economies should consider transforming the discourse from a focus on industrialisation to a broader one centred on value addition in agriculture, manufacturing, and services.
The representatives of young professionals and woman entrepreneurs deserve seats at the big table to evolve viable, efficient, and sustainable solutions for problems the world is faced with. Without their participation, there will always be a deficit of compassion and innovation.
There are bridges that we have built not only between individual companies but also between associations. This will keep business and investments flowing.
Improving SME productivity translates into more and better paying jobs, distributed across less fortunate sections of the economy.
For Latin American countries seeking to play a bigger role in global trade, effectively implementing trade-facilitating reforms could be an important tool in their toolkits.
The lack of livelihood opportunities in refugee camps pushes many people to embark on dangerous journeys in the quest for a better life.
It is no coincidence that in the wake of the Arab Spring, investment in youth-related initiatives, especially related to employment, has increased sharply.
Most people - including business leaders - want a healthy future for their children.
ITC looks forward to working with the chief minister and the government of India to ensure trade leads to impact on the ground.
Trade and investment are good for innovation - open economies allow new ideas and technologies to diffuse more quickly from wherever they are created.
Without action to de-carbonize our economies, unchecked climate change threatens to batter lives and economies around the world, hitting the poorest people hardest.
Entrepreneurs - both women and men - need equal and fair access to finance - to create new businesses, to reach to new markets, and to adapt to climate change.
Connecting small and medium-sized businesses to international markets can create work for host country nationals alongside refugees, building economic growth and resilience in host communities.
The tourism industry has considerable potential to be a sustainability role model in its role as a buyer of goods and other services, from building materials and green construction standards to farm produce.
The fact is that during the post-1989 heyday of globalization optimism, political and business elites did not think enough about the prospect - plainly predicted in economic theory - that trade would harm some people even while leaving society as a whole better off. The result was overpromised benefits and inadequate adjustment plans.
Gender-based job restrictions tend to be associated with wider wage gaps and lower employment rates for women. And where girls' future earning potential is limited, families may choose to send their brothers to school instead.
Our main aim globally is to connect more women to the economy because we know there is a specific market failure there: women are having more difficulty in business than men.
Women are the half of the engine of our societies; they are half of the engines of our economies.
Skills development as a means to income generation is the key to integrate vulnerable migrants into the mainstream of society and to equip them for an eventual return home.
Through the SITA initiative, we are building bridges between India and East Africa by taking Indian companies to these countries to see with their own eyes what the opportunities are.
Some of the anti-trade sentiment is the result of rising wealth inequality and stagnating real wages.
The deeper your regional integration, the more value chain activity you generate, but the more you close the gap between your small and your large companies.
Look at a map of the world: the countries which do not trade much, or which trade only in oil and gas, tend to be in regions which suffer the most social and political instability.
Japan has huge potential in women - potential, especially in the area of the economy, that Japan is not using fully.
If governments start to go it alone on trade, it will become harder, not easier, to generate the jobs and rising incomes that angry electorates want.
Governments everywhere have ministries dedicated to women's affairs. I know of only one with a Ministry for Women Empowerment: Indonesia. Charged with the 'realization of gender equality and justice' together with children's well-being, the ministry frames gender equality as a matter of justice.
We often run the risk, when discussing women empowerment, to think that this is about women talking about women with other women, but this is not the point.
Policy and business elites did not speak frankly about the unequal distribution of benefits from trade and failed to adequately accompany market-opening with good domestic policies to equip displaced workers to upskill, adjust, and share in the new opportunities being created.
Creating large numbers of decent jobs for young people is critical for achieving overall development objectives, from poverty reduction to better health and education.
Predictably, open markets made it possible for countries to drive rapid growth by hitching their wagon to the world economy and using global demand to pull people and resources out of subsistence activities into more productive work.
E-commerce is a powerful means to connect the unconnected to global trade.
There is no intrinsic reason African countries should be importing, rather than exporting, basic staples like rice or higher value products like frozen chicken, cooking oil, or instant noodles.
Laws matter. With effective implementation and enforcement, good laws can nudge forward positive changes in social and cultural mores.
