Digital Trade Regulatory Review for Asia-Pacific, Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean 2024:ESCAP-ECA-ECLAC Initiative on Digital Trade Regulatory Integration

Abstract

The report underscores the importance of regulatory cooperation in minimizing the fragmentation of digital trade rules, enhancing transparency, and reducing uncertainties, and lowering compliance costs, which disproportionately affect small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) more than large firms. According to data collected in 2023-2024, the regional average RDTII scores are highest for the Asia-Pacific region (0.41), followed by Africa (0.34) and then LAC (0.25). The index scores reveal that firms operating in Asia-Pacific economies are likely to encounter higher digital-trade regulatory compliance costs compared to those in Africa and LAC. Conversely, firms in LAC economies face the lowest compliance costs. Furthermore, the regulatory similarity index, which reflects the relative proximity of digital trade policies across jurisdictions, indicates that regulatory cooperation would be most beneficial in the Asia-Pacific region, followed by Africa and LAC, respectively. This is attributed to the relatively low level of regulatory similarity within the Asia-Pacific group (0.64), in comparison to the African group (0.68). and the LAC group (0.73). This 2024 edition of the Digital Trade Regulatory Review for Asia-Pacific, Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean includes data up to 2023 based on the RDTII 2.0 research framework. The report consists of five chapters. The first chapter provides an overview of the RDTII 2.0 framework. The subsequent chapters two, three and four — detail the key findings of the RDTII 2.0 for the Asia-Pacific, African and LAC regions, respectively. The final chapter synthesizes the findings from all three regions to put forward recommendations for digital trade policy.