Trade Promotion Organizations in the Pandemic World

A 2021-22 survey of trade promotion organizations conducted by the World Bank to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic affected their functioning suggests four main findings. First, trade promotion organizations in high-income countries are larger than those in low-income countries, suggesting a stronger capacity to adapt during the pandemic. Second, trade promotion organizations in high-income countries saw a significant jump in their median budget in 2021 indicating a strong response effort. In low-income countries, the budgets of trade promotion organizations declined. Third, most trade promotion organizations in high-income countries put in place a COVID-19 recovery plan, while none of the trade promotion organizations in low-income countries had one in place at the time of the survey. Fourth, trade promotion organizations used several virtual tools during the pandemic, such as business-to-business matching events and training of small firms on e-commerce, and are expecting to increase the use of all virtual tools post COVID-19. Trade promotion organizations' use of virtual tools in low-income countries remained limited