In this first episode of the World Bank Group's Trade Tips podcast, we explore why trade matters and how it benefits economies all over the globe. We learn about the big picture when it comes to trade and how it can be made more efficient for traders.
We hear from traders in Nepal and Tonga about their challenges, and from the World Bank Group's Mona Haddad, Director of Trade, Investment, and Competitiveness, on possible solutions.
Listen now! on your favorite platform.
Featured Voices
- Sundar Dahal, owner, Starlight Express, Nepal: ¡°We should have our own exports, rather than assembled ones. So, I thought we should start exporting tea, coffee, turmeric, and ginger.¡± Sundar Dahal, Starlight Express, Nepal -- Listen now to the #TradeTipsPodcast!
- Tai¡¯atu Ataata, owner of JJ Rose Store and Gallery, Tonga: ¡°You have to have that go get attitude because it¡¯s difficult to operate. You just have to pull yourself up and keep going.¡±
- Mona Haddad, Director of Trade, Investment, and Competitiveness, World Bank Group: "Trade is an engine of growth that creates better jobs, reduces poverty, and increases economic opportunity. Economic growth underlined by better trade practices, has lifted more than one billion people out of poverty since 1990.¡± Mona Haddad, Director of Trade, Investment, and Competitiveness @WorldBank -- Listen now to the #TradeTipsPodcast!
Transcript
[00:02] Sarah Treanor: Hello and welcome to Trade Tips from the World Bank Group. I'm Sarah Treanor. This is the podcast where we tackle some of the big issues in the world of trade and explore solutions. In this episode, why trade matters and how it benefits economies all over the globe. We hear about the big picture when it comes to trade and how trade can be made more efficient.
Sundar Dahal: We should have our own exports rather than assembled ones. I thought we should start to export tea, coffee, turmeric, ginger, something like that.
Tai'atu Ataata: You just have to have that go to attitude because it's difficult to operate. But you know, just have to keep on pulling yourself up and keep going.
Sarah Treanor: Yes, we'll be getting the view from Nepal, from the Pacific Island nation of Tonga and from the World Bank Group in Washington, DC.
Mona Haddad: Trade is an engine of growth that creates better jobs, produces poverty, and increases economic opportunity. Economic growth, underpinned by better trade practices, has lifted more than 1 billion people out of poverty since 1990.
Sarah Treanor: That's all coming up on the podcast.
Montage: Trade tips, trade tips, trade tips.
[01:27] Sarah Treanor: This is the sound of a festival in Nepal. Children chant in unison and tap sticks together as they dance in the ancient busing streets of Kathmandu.
Sundar Dahal: This is Sundar Dahal. I'm from Nepal. And I am a logistic service provider and trade promoter from Nepal. I've been in this business since 1-9-9-1. I'm in the city, not in downtown, but a busy place in Kathmandu.
Sarah Treanor: Sundar shared the recording of this festival after we spoke. Proud to give an example of the beauty and celebration he sees in his country.
Sundar Dahal: I used to be a photojournalist. I was working with some Japanese people who have been working in Nepal.
Sarah Treanor: And these clients, he tells me, were complaining that somebody needed to modernize the trade of Nepalese goods, get a good system for packing and exporting.
Sundar Dahal: Then I realized that to have a good economy in the country, we should have our own exports rather than assembled ones. Because we do have lot of garments produced in Nepal, but raw materials are imported. I thought we should start to export tea, coffee, turmeric, ginger, something like that.
Sarah Treanor: But it wasn't easy. Technology was all but non-existent. Access to information was hard. Sundar and others like him in Nepal didn't really even have access to the internet.
Sundar Dahal: No information at all. Not that much access to internet at that time. We didn't have other country's information.
Sarah Treanor: There are other issues too. Sundar doesn't have access to a lab in Nepal to do all of the testing. He needs to export a lot of his food products and other produce. That means sometimes he has to export it to India for tests and certification, then import it back to get to its final destination. This can take weeks, he tells me, and sometimes products get spoiled in the heat.
Sundar Dahal: India does not accept our standards. We do in Nepal. We have to go with the full of load of trucks to India customs. They take out the sampling from that truck and serve it to their lab in Delhi, Kolkata, or somewhere else. This means it's a really long delay. Sometimes our goods already get rotten, so this is a really tough thing for us.
Sarah Treanor: Sundar tells me that he grows things like black cardamom, but sells it domestically and access to global markets is still too tricky in landlocked Nepal.
Sundar Dahal: I do produce big black cardamom in my own farm, and also we do produce ginger and turmeric in our own farm. We are selling them at really low costs in the local area because people don't have access to international markets.
Sarah Treanor: Despite various challenges, Sundar is clearly an optimist. He believes in the products that he and others around him produce and that there's a market for them around the world. One thing that has made his life easier is access to something called the Nepal Trade Information Portal. It's an electronic system, kind of a one stop shop for information, for traders like Sundar.
Sundar Dahal: We have suffered a lot in the past. Now we have something called the Nepal Trade Portal. We feel very lucky that this information is compiled. There still are so many things to be accommodated, but that is really instrumental for us.
[05:06] Sarah Treanor: Now far from landlocked high altitude Nepal is Nuku?alofa. It's the capital of the Pacific Island nation of Tonga, the Kingdom of Tonga to be exact. The kingdom is made up of a string of islands dotted across the ocean. Many, not more than two meters above sea level. Tonga is also a country which shut its borders entirely as Covid-19 hit and struggles with supply chains and trade routes.
Tai'atu Ataata: Yes, Sarah. Can you hear me okay?
Sarah Treanor: I caught up with Tai'atu Ataata. She's a business owner, has various ventures in tourism and rents out properties, but she also imports goods, both for her baking business and for retail. She owns a shop.
Tai'atu Ataata: So from March 2-0-2-0, our borders closed - so from March 2-0-2-0 to August 2-0-2-2. A lot of business went fast. I mean, no one came in. Obviously you would know we import everything. I looked at the market. I bake cakes, so the supply of goods just was not coming in. For instance, very, very basic things like walnuts...we weren't getting walnuts coming in. I started importing not only for myself, but also for other cake bakers. Then I also looked at the women's needs as basic as pantyliners wasn't in. So then I also started importing women in health products.
Sarah Treanor: She tells me that in her view, trade in Tonga is crying out for modernization and technology.
Tai'atu Ataata: Everything is still very, very manual. Very, very old school. There's a lack of development on the technology side. The internet doesn't work very well. Internet costs are very expensive here. Because everything here is manual. It's all paper shuffling from one end to another. I've had stock lost, so I have a broker who goes and clears my goods, if it comes from Australia. But in December, I had goods. I had lots of goods coming in to prep for Christmas. I had 66 boxes coming in, and some were lost. Couldn't find it. The broker told me I had to go physically check, and so that means I need to physically go, which is really inefficient and count every box.
Sarah Treanor: Tai'atu says that even now that borders are open. Inflation is a big problem for a country reliant on imports.
Tai'atu Ataata: The energy price is expensive. Everything's expensive. All the costs have gone up. Everybody's jacked up their prices. It was only until the Ukraine problem occurred and then the energy fuel prices went up and all the cost of food has gone up too. Everything. Most people are not importing and exporting. They're usually just importing. We'll never address that trade imbalance because we don't really have any products.
Sarah Treanor: But just like Sundar, who we heard from earlier, she's determined to make it work.
Tai'atu Ataata: You just have to have that 'go get' attitude because it's difficult to operate. But you know, just have to keep on pulling yourself up and keep going.
[08:09] Sarah Treanor: Now let's head to Washington, DC to get the view from the World Bank Group.
Mona Haddad: My name is Mona Haddad and I'm the Director for Trade, Investment and Competitiveness at the World Bank.
Sarah Treanor: Mona, it's a real pleasure to speak to you. This is the first episode of this series, and we've just heard from two traders in very different parts of the world. They've got very different situations and different concerns. Ukraine, global conflict, inflation. Tell me why is efficient and smooth trade so important for economies, especially for developing economies?
Mona Haddad: Trade is an engine of growth that creates better jobs, reduces poverty, and increases economic opportunity. Research shows that trade liberalization increases economic growth, but by an average of one to 1.5 percentage points resulting in 10 to 20 percent higher income after a decade. Economic growth underpinned by better trade practices, has lifted more than 1 billion people out of poverty since 1990. In developing countries, access to global markets is often hindered by anti-competitive business practices and inadequate ports, roads, and other infrastructure. Many of the world's poorest people live in places that are landlocked, remote or otherwise ill-served by international trade links,
[09:45] Sarah Treanor: And that's really encompassing a lot of what we've just heard, particularly with our trader from Tonga. We're also hearing a lot in this series about something called trade facilitation. So tell me what is trade facilitation?
Mona Haddad: Trade facilitation initiatives help countries reduce the time and cost for cross-border trade by streamlining the technical and legal procedures and processes for products moving across borders - from the electronic exchange of data about the shipment, to the simplification and harmonization of trade documents and processes, to the implementation of measures to enhance transparency and predictability for traders, such as trade information portals, single windows, and one-stop shops.
[10:37] Sarah Treanor: That's really interesting, and we're going to be hearing a little bit more about, well, a lot more about some of the things you mentioned like trade information portals and single windows in some of our next episodes. So where does the World Bank Group play a role?
Mona Haddad: The World Bank Group is the largest multilateral provider of trade facilitation support. We work very closely with the World Trade Organization and other partners and donors in supporting developing countries in improving border processes and procedures. For example, as a result of a World Bank Group trade facilitation project in Bangladesh, import clearance times have been reduced from 12.2 days to 9.6 days at the Port of Chittagong by strengthening border agency coordination, improving risk management, and reviewing legal cross border trade frameworks. In Guatemala and Honduras, the World Bank Group helped cut the time for traders to cross the border from 10 hours to seven minutes.
Sarah Treanor: Mona, thank you so much for talking us through some of those really important bits of information for us to all keep in mind as we listen to the rest of the series.
Mona Haddad: Thank you very much. All the best.
[11:58] Sarah Treanor: Thanks so much to Sundar, Tai'atu and Mona. It's been amazing to hear these insights. This is only the first episode in this series, so do check out our other podcasts where we'll be exploring all kinds of issues like women and inclusion in trade, how bananas are a victim of their own success, and what Caribbean rum cake can teach us about trade. This podcast series has been made possible thanks to the funding of nine donor partners, Australia, Canada, the European Union, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Many thanks. That's all for this episode of Trade Tips from the World Bank Group. I'm Sarah Treanor and we'll see you soon.
Presenter and Producer: Sarah Treanor
Executive Producer: Marisa Zawacki
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This podcast was created by the World Bank Group with funding from Trade Facilitation Support Program (TFSP). The TFSP is funded by nine donor partners: Australia, Canada, the European Commission, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United States, and the United Kingdom. This initiative provides assistance to countries seeking to align their trade practices with the (WTO TFA).
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ABOUT THE TRADE TIPS PODCAST
This Trade Tips podcast tackles the big issues in the world of trade and explores solutions. In this new podcast from the World Bank Group, we take you on a journey around the globe ¨C from Vanuatu to Ghana, Jamaica to Nepal, London to Washington, DC. Through conversations with traders who are being affected by key issues like climate change, digitization, gender ¨C and our experts offering cutting-edge solutions ¨C we highlight why trade matters and how it can be made more efficient. Don't miss an episode! on your favorite platform. Tell us what you think of our podcast here.
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ABOUT THE WORLD BANK GROUP¡¯S WORK ON TRADE
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