The Global Report for Digital and Sustainable Trade Facilitation is an annual report published by the United Nations that analyses the progress in facilitating trade and on digital trade in 163 countries from different regions of the world. The report recognizes the critical role that trade facilitation plays in supporting sustainable development, by enabling more efficient and transparent trade procedures, enhancing the resilience of global supply chains and decreasing overall trade costs. The 2023 edition of the report evaluates 60 trade facilitation measures (from the 58 of the 2022 edition), classified into 4 groups: 1) general trade facilitation; 2) digital trade facilitation; 3) sustainable trade facilitation and a residual one (4), called ‘other trade facilitation’. Each of such groups is further categorized into 11 subgroups covering both binding and non-binding measures embedded in the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA), as well as measures that go beyond the scope of the WTO TFA. The subgroups, in turn, are categorized in individual measures (ex. publication of existing import-export regulations on the Internet) that in the case of binding measures included in the WTO TFA, show the relevant article of the agreement that regulates the measure (ex., in the case of publication of existing import-export regulations on the Internet, the relevant TFA article is art. 1.2).

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On 21 November 2023 there was the virtual launch of the third PAFTRAC Africa CEO Trade Survey Report. Despite the report is not feely available online (it can be however obtained by filling this form), we provide here a summary of the main findings of such report drawn from its official presentation. PAFTRAC is the acronym of Pan-African Private Sector Trade and Investment Committee, an organization that gathers a series of stakeholders from both the public and private sector to deliberate on policy issues, like trade across the continent, so to help to guide the formation of these policies at continental level. PAFTRAC elaborates annual reports where it analyses the perceptions of African Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) about the future economic outlook of Africa. All the editions of the report also make an analysis of the expectations of African businesses regarding the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

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