Asia Regional Integration Center

Steven Beck, the Head of ADB’s Trade and Supply Chain Finance Program, answers questions about the trade finance gap in Asia and around the world, based on ADB’s Trade Finance Gaps, Growth, and Jobs Survey.

The time is right to rejigger global supply chains. One school of thought is to diversify those further away from places prone to disruptions due to economic, health, climate change and geopolitical issues.

These regional trade deals, and digital economy agreements, have created a host of new negotiating, regulatory and policy challenges for developing countries.

There is already a distinct line that divides time before the COVID-19 pandemic and two years after it started. It is the line where COVID exposed our fragility...

The fight against the pandemic has left a large imprint on the US Federal Reserve’s balance sheet. Since the outbreak of the pandemic in early 2020, the US Fed has purchased a wide range of assets and pumped liquidity into the financial system to cushion the impact of the pandemic and fiscal stimulus on interest rates.

Trade in services, particularly non-digital services, and movement of people is still sluggish due to the ongoing pandemic. The emergence of new COVID-19 variants has hit trade particularly hard.