Date: 16 November 2017 (8.45 a.m. to 1.45 p.m.)
Venue: Conference room 8, United Nations Headquarters, New York.
Agenda of the meeting
Background Information
The importance of short-term finance to support global trade, known as “trade finance”, is explicitly recognised in the Addis Ababa Action Agenda on Financing for Development (“Addis Agenda”). Trade financing is an essential tool to enable the flow of trade through global supply chains and to support the growth of entrepreneurs and small businesses in developing and least-developed economies, by enabling access to global markets and value chains. In the intergovernmentally agreed conclusions and recommendations of the 2017 ECOSOC Forum on Financing for Development follow-up, Member States ‘noted the US $1.6 trillion shortage in trade finance provision reported by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC)’ and called on the IATF ‘to review the trade financing gap as part of its 2018 report.’ In response to this mandate, the Task Force is holding a technical meeting to:
(i) Create a common foundational understanding of trade finance and supply chain finance, along with key issues related to the Trade Finance Gap
(ii) share Task Force members’ perspectives and ongoing work on the Trade Finance Gap, and to
(iii) discuss potential focus areas, key issues, messages and recommendations that would add value to the discussion in the context of the Financing for Development process, and that could be included in the 2018 Task Force report for consideration by Member States.
The deliberations at the meeting will inform the drafting of a section on Trade Finance in the 2018 Task Force report and will be published on the Online Annex