International Trade Center urges Philippines firms to use free online tools

MANILA, Philippines - The International Trade Centre (ITC) is encouraging Filipino enterprises looking for information on new overseas destinations to explore available resources online offered free of charge.

ITC, a subsidiary organization of the World Trade Organization and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, said exporters could take advantage of its free suite of online tools designed to make global trade more transparent and facilitate access to new markets. 

“According to a 2014 user survey, ITC tools contributed to $126 million in exports and are deemed particularly instrumental to users in least developed countries where local sources of trade intelligence are often unavailable,” ITC said.

ITC’s market analysis tools are provided free of charge due to support from the World Bank, the European Commission, and funders of the ITC’s trust fund.

ITC said its online market analysis tools provide a comprehensive trade database and presents indicators on export performance, international demand, and alternative markets.

It also provides information on applied customs tariffs, including most favored nation tariffs and unilateral and trade agreement preferences.

The application covers tariff rate quotas, trade remedies, rules of origin, plus the corresponding certificates, bound tariffs of WTO members, non-tariff measures, and trade flows, ITC officials said.

Moreover, ITC said its online tools seek to help businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, bid for public procurement contracts around the world as it includes country by country breakdown of up to 100,000 public tenders.