Abu Dhabi yesterday used the experience of a key UN organisation to launch a landmark online trade map that will give UAE exporters greater access to global markets and support the country's ongoing drive to ease reliance on volatile oil sales.
TradeMap-UAE was launched at the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry with the assistance of the International Trade Centre, an affiliate of the Geneva-based World Trade Organisation and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
The online network will provide UAE public and private exporters with trade data for more than 5,000 products covering nearly 200 countries, besides 100 countries reporting their export and import statistics to the United Nations.
"The trade map will promote the UAE's export business by increasing the competitiveness of the national products in the local, regional and international markets," said Ahmed Hassan Al Mansouri, the chamber's deputy director general.
"According to the agreement with ITC, the map will include the data for the past four years and will be updated on a yearly basis... although it will be operated from Geneva, the network will be linked with the Chamber web site and can be accessed through a password provided by the Chamber," he told reporters after launching the project.
He said the main objective of the trade map, the first of its kind in the region, is to promote non-oil exports of the UAE with the ultimate purpose of reducing dependence on oil.
He hoped all UAE traders will take advantage of this significant project by analysing and identifying business and commercial opportunities in the markets covered by the project.
"The trade map will allow the examination of performance and dynamics of any country's export market for any product...it will identify the number and size of export markets and also highlight the countries where market share has increased," he said.
"Another application of the Map will involve an overview of the world's major importing countries, with indicators on total import value and quantity, market share and rankings.....the users of the Map can also identify bilateral trade opportunities by comparing actual bilateral trade, demand in terms of global imports of the country's economic and trading partners, and the global export capacity of the UAE."
ITC said the TradeMap will provide UAE exporters with direct Web access to the world's largest trade database encompassing trade in over 5,000 products.
"It covers not only the major trading nations and leading sectors, but goes down to significant detail from potato to electronic chips and from sunflowers to sun glasses," said Friedrich von Kirchbach, chief of Market Analysis Section at ITC.
"It charts the trade performance of countries, some of which we may have never heard of so far but which are nevertheless players in international trade...
"TradeMap UAE puts at your fingerprints information on import demand and export supply capacities for all merchandise trade throughout the world."
Gulf News
