International Trade Centre (ITC)

We are improving the lives of millions of people in developing countries through the powerful engine of trade. 

Building trade-led growth for a more equitable world. Our support for micro, small and medium-sized businesses’ ability to compete can lift individuals, communities and countries out of poverty and create a more equitable world.

Description of Activities on AI

Project 1: Strengthening policy support for SMEs in developing countries using artificial intelligence

TradeAI is an AI-powered online trade policy advisory application that offers policymakers quick and complimentary access to relevant policy solutions for their most common trade-related challenges. This app empowers policymakers to understand trade strategy, connect with other professionals, and create their own streamlined trade and SME (Small and Medium Enterprises) competitiveness strategies. The project leverages AI to identify potential policy solutions that can address a country’s trade competitiveness constraints. It utilizes image recognition, natural language processing (NLP) techniques, and neural networks to discover patterns in data and generate new policy insights. TradeAI was initiated in 2020 as a pilot project to evaluate how AI could help the International Trade Centre (ITC) identify pertinent information within extensive repositories of trade policy documents. Throughout 2021 and 2022, the project delved into ITC’s comprehensive database of national trade strategies, employing a mix of NLP methods, information extraction techniques, and neural networks to thoroughly analyze the trade competitiveness issues countries typically encounter, along with the solutions policymakers and experts commonly recommend. In 2023, TradeAI initiated a pilot to integrate generative AI into the app, enhancing its capability to offer innovative policy solutions.

Lessons Learned

Supervised machine learning can be used to accurately identify relevant trade and SME-related content automatically. This capability significantly streamlines the tasks traditionally performed by junior policy analysts, who previously spent days on these activities. Now, similar (and consistently reliable) results can be achieved instantaneously with the click of a button. The substantial time savings free up resources for tasks that add more value.

Project 2: Corporate Strategy for AI in ITC

ITC has developed an organizational strategy for AI in ITC’s own operations – with a focus on how AI tools can make the organization more productive and innovate with new approaches to trade development.

Related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)