Development Account Project 06/07K:
Strengthening the Development of International Merchandise Trade Statistics (IMTS) and the
Compilation of e-commerce in Member Countries of the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA)

Introduction

In April 2006 the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UNESCWA) received approval for its project “Strengthening the Development of International Merchandise Trade Statistics and the Compilation of e-commerce in Member Countries of the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA)”. The project is funded by the Development Account of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) of the United Nations Secretariat.

The overriding objective of the project is to assist the 13 ESCWA member countries (Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Syrian Arab Republic, United Arab Emirates and Yemen) in developing and improving their capacity to collect, process, analyze, utilize and disseminate trade data for the formulation, monitoring and evaluation of national plans and policies for international and regional trade negotiations.

The duration of the project will be 36 months and it started in 2006. ESCWA is the managing entity working closely with UNSD in the conduct of the country missions and workshops. UNSD will be the lead entity on the substantive issues concerning the methodology and compilation of IMTS. UNCTAD, FAO, IMF, ITC, WTO, WCO, Eurostat and OECD provide resource persons where necessary. The project will carry out a number of activities including workshops and country missions.

For further details of the project please go to the project website at ESCWA.