Going Digital to Create 350m New Exporters, Says DMCC’s ‘Future of Trade’ Report

As many as 350 million businesses would begin exporting goods for the first time if they were to adopt an end-to-end digital strategy, according to the first ‘Future of Trade’ report from DMCC, one of the world’s leading commodity hubs for trade and enterprise.

The report provides a view of how ‘The Future of Trade’ will unfold over the next ten years, and builds on insights shared by 150 experts across five continents over twelve months. ‘The Future of Trade’ report was produced by DMCC in conjunction with Futureagenda.org and the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr), a leading UK economics consultancy.

The report’s most striking conclusion was the scale and impact of digitalisation on global trade. DMCC’s research suggests that full digitalisation of commerce could lead to a six-fold increase in the number of business that export goods. This could mean between 100 million and 350 million businesses would become engaged in global export trade for the first time.

“The conclusions of our report are clear,” said Gautam Sashittal, Chief Executive Officer, DMCC. “Companies that want to succeed in today’s challenging marketplace must adopt a robust digital strategy, think globally and embrace change. If the world of global trade collaborates around these maxims, we will all surely benefit.”

To highlight the importance of their findings, DMCC and Cebr created the Industry Digitalisation Index (IDI) to track the progress of change across geographies and sectors. The index will be updated regularly to provide a real-time picture of digital progress in global trade. The IDI finds that 42% of all business are fully digitalised today.