ARTNeT e-Forum

The ARTNeT e-Forum is a place for members of the community to share their thoughts on trade, investment and development issues. Read the latest from members of the ARTNeT community, or send in your own thoughts to start a conversation.

Visit the ARTNeT e-Forum, or send your contributions to [email protected].


Aid for Trade: financial and technical assistance in the area of trade

The purpose of Aid for Trade is to provide developing countries increased financial and technical assistance in the area of trade to enable them to take advantage of multilateral trade liberalization which in turn would contribute towards their development and reduction of poverty. Aid for Trade is geared to generating growth, employment and income and therefore a contribution to the first of the Millennium Development Goals namely to reduce the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day (MDG 1). It is directly linked to MDG 8, which aims to establish a global partnership for development, in particular to develop further an open trading and financial system that is rule based, predictable and non-discriminatory, as it supports development of supply-side capacity for countries to utilize trade more effectively.

The Aid for Trade initiative is rooted in the premise that trade liberalization supports long-term development in all developing countries, regardless of their differences, provided that they are assisted to cope with the cost of adjustment to trade liberalization and to enhance their trading capacity.

The purpose of this website is to give a reader a conceptual understanding of what is Aid for Trade and its importance towards development; and to provide comprehensive information on the work done by various agencies and their relevant publications. Through this website, we aim to create one umbrella where important/relevant information is available to facilitate the coordination and monitoring of Aid for Trade amongst various stakeholders to make it more effective.

Further information on the Aid for Trade initiative can be found on the Aid for Trade page.


ARTNeT Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) initiative

The Asia-Pacific Research and Training Network (ARTNeT) GMS initiative aims to provide enhanced complementary support to research institutions from the subregion to conduct joint trade-related research on issues of interest to policymakers. The initiative includes a capacity-building component involving researchers and research institutions in three GMS countries (Cambodia, Viet Nam, and Lao PDR), as well as a research programme component in line with priority areas identified through ARTNeT consultations and relevant government focal points.

Further information on the initiative can be found on the ARTNeT Greater Mekong Subregion Initiative page.


ARTNeT service trade and regulation

The ARTNeT Services Trade and Regulation platform to provide enhanced access to resources relating to trade and regulation in services, including links to trainings and publications, as well as to databases of statistics and regulations of relevance to services. ARTNeT researchers and partners are welcome to contribute relevant resources to this site by contacting the ARTNeT Secretariat.

For experts and regulators in the area of services trade, please register or search for other experts and regulators.