Webinar on “Measuring Digital Trade”, 6 March 2024

Some practical approaches in the absence ofdigital trade dataMs. Witada Anukoowattaka (PhD),
Economic Affairs Officer
Trade, Investment and Innovation Division, ESCAP

Data clients and their expectations: Policymakers, businesses, and researchers• Understanding market dynamics -- timeliness• Understanding regulatory impact -- disaggregation and categorization• Benchmarking and comparison -- international comparability

2Challenges from the data user’s perspective❑ Readily available trade statistics disaggregate trade according to sector and product categories, not byordering and delivery modes.
• Goods: Trade value is mixed between traditional and digital trade.
• Services: Services in trade mode 1 are increasingly digitally delivered. However, WTO-TISMOS latest
update was 2017.
❑ In principle, estimates can be derived from a variety of sources, such as business or household surveys,
VAT reports, card payment data, or customs declarations. The lack of a common reporting framework has
made it highly challenging to achieve comparability across sources and economies.

❑ Using proxy or indicative approaches to represent digital trade trends is practical at this early stage ofdigital trade statistical measurement❑ The IMF-UNCTAD-OECD-WTO (2023) have compiled the many different potential sources for proxying
digital trade sub-components: i.e., digitally delivered and digitally ordered trade.

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Proxies❑ The use of ICT goods and services or internet penetration❑ Digitally deliverable services (DDS): services that can bedelivered remotely via an ICT network✓ Availability and international comparability✓ Arguably, provide an upper-bound indication ofdigital trade• 80% of DDSs are digitally delivered (UNCTAD,2015; BEA, 2012)• Most digitally delivered services are also likely to
be digitally ordered (IMF-UNCTAD-OECD-WTO,2023) – i.e. international e-commerce in services• A co-movement with digitally ordered flows ofgoods and services – backward linkages

4Digitally deliverable services

Source: APTIR 2023/24 available at https://www.unescap.org/kp/APTIR2023

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Marketplace Explorer tools

www.cmihva.link/africa

www.cmihva.link/asia

www.cmihva.link/latam

E-commerce web traffic
Problem

Solution

Non-systematicWebsite traffic used as a proxy measureof activity and growth of an onlinemarketplace.
Caveat:❑ Implicitly assume that traffic
is positively related toplatform sales and growth.
❑ Limited information torepresent cross-border ecommerce.

Commercially sensitive andprivacy related concerns

Measuring activity
on e-commerce
platforms

Lack of frequency as sales reports
are only published by largest
marketplaces, annually7❑ Asian Marketplace Explorer (AME) developed by ESCAP and CMI❑ A freely available online dashboard visualizes the characteristics of 1559 online business toconsumer (B2C) goods marketplaces in east Asia.
Asia Marketplace Explorer dashboard

Source: The landscape of B2C e-commerce marketplaces in East Asia (upcoming)

Source: Available at https://shorturl.at/cpsHL8

Building a database of marketplaces
urls

CMI Global
Marketplace
Outlook dataset

urls + Web traffic metrics

2022…

Economic indicators

Data from UN,
ITU, World banketc.

2019

url characteristics

Content analysis tocollect marketplace urlcharacteristics

ExampleFig 5. Distribution of traffic to B2C marketplaces, by geographical presence, 2019-2022❑ Traffic captured by marketplaces:❑ with global presence has increasedby 12.3pp.
❑ withnationalpresence
hasdecreased by 11.7 pp.
❑ with a regional presence hasdecreased by 0.6 pp.
❑ Marketplaces with a global presence
serve a larger and diverse market:
may provide access to a large variety
of products, competitive prices,
better delivery
options andcustomer service.
10Country Benchmark

Country statistics

Uncover trends

Find relevantmarketplaces
Marketplace
Benchmark