An innovative piece of trade analysis software has been launched to provide trade policy makers and trade business persons with a flexible and easy to use commerce analysis tool. It is hoped that the software will assist policy makers in the analysis of their trade policy choices and import/export strategy, without the need for sophisticated modelling or highly skilled or technically qualified economists.

TradeSift Pro has been designed by InterAnalysis, a spinout business launched by a team of economics academics and colleagues at the University of Sussex in 2009. The new product builds on the success of the company’s existing TradeSift software, which is used by more than 40 developed and developing countries globally.

Trade policy and trade policy amendments – be they bilateral, regional, or multilateral through the World Trade Organisation (WTO) – are a fundamental priority for almost all governments globally. There are currently over 625 regional trade agreements that have been notified to the WTO and 419 that have been enforced. The significance of global trade has recently been emphasised by the EU-UK referendum, with some non-trade persons taking a sharpened interest. For further analysis of how international trade may be affected by the EU-UK referendum, conducted using TradeSift Pro, read the thoughts of founders Dr Michael Gasiorek and Dr Peter Holmes here.

The low-cost, time-efficient trade policy analysis tool will not only go towards empowering policy analysts and trade business persons in their trade negotiating activities, but will provide actual trade analysis based on real-world national or regional data, whether it be before or after policy implementation.

TradeSift Pro also allows for business owners – whether Corporate or SME’s, well-established or new – to help identify import and export opportunities by product or tariff. It looks at size and growth rates of products, historical and current tariff rates against a wide range of indicators, which can quickly and accurately generate live or standard charts, graphs or tables to be used for reporting or interest purposes.

User feedback for earlier versions of the software employed at InterAnalysis’ capacity building workshops has been overwhelmingly positive:

“I was impressed by TradeSift. I would call it the magician of trade policy analysis.”

“TradeSift has greatly enhanced my job, and my Director is particularly pleased that I was able to use it to analyse trade data and draw inference on the implications of the GSTP and D8 preferential trade agreements for Nigeria. It is for this reason that he is calling for the training of more Officers.”

“I am not an economist so the possibility of being able to calculate and analyse economic indicators with the assistance of TradeSift is amazing and most valuable. I found the hands-on sessions most fun.”

Peter Holmes, Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Sussex, and one of the team behind TradeSift Pro, said: “Tradesift Pro is a wholly updated version of a programme that has already impressed trade policy experts all over the world. It allows you to generate graphs, charts and tables, giving insights into trade policy options that are based on key economic principles but need no modelling skills. It allows one to look at export opportunities, competitiveness challenges and trade barriers at fine levels of detail. This new version takes into account important new developments in trade data, including trade in value added and trade in services.”

If you are a trade policy maker, trade person or business owner and want to learn more about TradeSift Pro, contact the team by email, or call on +44 (0) 1273 234 641. A free 15-day trial version of the software is available to download from the TradeSift website.

TradeSift is a software product designed to provide analysis of trade policy such as regional or bilateral trade agreements without requiring sophisticated modelling or highly technically qualified economists.