Launch of World Trade Indicators

The World Bank Institute and the World Bank's InfoShop recently launched: 

The World Trade Indicators: Global Trade Policies and Online Tools for Policy Analysis

Trade integration plays an important role in national development and poverty reduction. This compact, user-friendly, and easily accessible interactive database contains 126 indicators measuring at-the-border and behind-the-border trade policy performance and outcome for 208 countries. Drawing from internationally comparable databases and including some new measures of trade policy, the database groups country performance around five main pillars: border protection, such as tariffs and non-tariff barriers on goods and services; constraints to market access in the rest of the world; the overall business and institutional environment; trade facilitation; and trade outcomes, such as trade growth, and diversification. These indicators can be used to benchmark and rank a country’s policy and outcome performance vis-a-vis partners, and current and potential competitors on world markets. The database may also be used to compare changes in policy and outcomes during the last decade.

The launch took place Wednesday, December 19, 2007
11:30 am -1:00 pm, World Bank J Building, Auditorium J1-050

WELCOMING REMARKS
Rakesh Nangia
Acting Vice President, World Bank Institute
Mr. Nangia is the World Bank Institute’s (WBI) Acting Vice President and Director of Operations.  The latter position he assumed in September 2006 and he was appointed Acting Vice President of WBI in March 2007. In his more than 20 years in the World Bank, Mr. Nangia’s career has spanned a wide range of countries and positions, including development work in Africa, East Asia, Eastern Europe and South Asia, as well as in the Bank's Corporate Secretariat and Central Accounting group. Prior to his current position, Mr. Nangia served as Manager, Portfolio and Country Operations, in Vietnam.

INTRODUCTION
Danny Leipziger
Vice President and Head of Network, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management, World Bank
Mr. Leipziger has been Vice President of the World Bank's Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network since 2004. He provides leadership for the Bank’s strategic work on growth and poverty reduction and is also the focal point for economic policy, debt, trade, gender and governance issues. His previous positions at the Bank have included Director of the Finance, Infrastructure and Private Sector Group of the Latin America and the Caribbean Region (LAC); and Lead Departmental Economist in both the LAC and the East Asia and Pacific Regions. Prior to joining the Bank, he worked with the U.S. Department of State and with the U.S. Agency for International Development. 

PRESENTERS
Roumeen Islam
Manager, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management, World Bank Institute
Ms. Islam is Manager of the World Bank Institute’s Poverty Reduction & Economic Management Division. Prior to joining WBI, Ms. Islam was Staff Director of the World Bank's World Development Report 2002: Building Institutions for Markets.She was advisor to the Chief Economist and Senior Vice President in the Bank's Development Economics group. Ms. Islam has also worked in World Bank Operations in several regions. Her professional expertise includes public expenditure rationalization, fiscal stability, growth strategies, trade and exchange rate issues, sovereign debt rationalization, financial sector reform, and private sector development. 

Gianni Zanini
Lead Economist, World Bank Institute
Mr. Zanini is a Lead Economist at the World Bank Institute (WBI).  Since late 2002, he has led WBI’s trade team, working on capacity building and external training programs in trade policy reform, trade facilitation, and the multilateral, regional, and bilateral trade agreements. He has more than 17 years experience at the World Bank, first as a country economist and then as an evaluator of the performance of Bank programs. Prior to working at the World Bank, he taught at the University of California, Davis.

DISCUSSANT
Michael Moore
Elliott School of International Affairs and Department of Economics, George Washington University
Mr. Moore is the founding Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. He served as Senior Economist for International Trade at the White House Council of Economic Advisers from July 2002 through July 2003. He teaches courses on international economics, at the undergraduate, master's, and PhD levels.  Mr. Moore's most recent research is on antidumping procedures in the United States, and U.S. and European steel industries and their adjustment to international competition.