Are Trade Agencies Becoming More Like Hedge Funds?

Trade promotion, where a country promotes its companies and products to be bought by another, has a certain image. One imagines suave Alan Whicker clones sipping wine and doing deals at expensive hotels.

That image is changing rapidly and not just because Covid-19 makes getting on planes remarkably difficult. Data is the new frontier of trade, and export agencies are investing in databases so that they can better understand markets, identify opportunities and find the right companies to drive up their exports.

The Alan Whickers of this world are being replaced by analysts and trade agencies are starting to think more like hedge funds as they scour a world of data in search of value. From trade flows to procurement data trade agencies are using data to better understand what other countries need and how to match that overseas demand with local supply.

Korea has recently launched a big data platform to support local companies, boasting of using 76,000 sets of market intelligence data, more than 300,000 sets of overseas company information and 1 billion sets of global export statistics.

With artificial intelligence capability to model, structure and link data at an unprecedented scale, the potential for providing intelligent services for exporters is already a reality.

Procurement data is the best first step into the world of data for trade agencies. Government procurement is worth $13tn each year and the breadth of demand is enormous. The data includes cast iron opportunities and the ability to easily match suppliers to your government to the needs of another.

If your trade agency would like to know more about how we can provide data from over 700 different sources around the world, then get in touch.