Pacific Aid for Trade Strategy 2020-2025
Our focus is supporting Forum Member countries to build the trade capacity and infrastructure needed to benefit from global trade opportunities.
The Pacific Aid for Trade Strategy 2020-2025 (PAfTS) helps Forum Members articulate what regionalism means with respect to trade development.
Aid for Trade (AfT) is about helping developing countries build the trade capacity and infrastructure needed to benefit from trade liberalisation. It plays a critical role in helping developing countries turn trade policies and initiatives into real world trade development.
In 2020, the PAfTS was endorsed by Forum Trade Ministers. The PAfTS ensures that: key regional trade priorities are addressed; regional trade initiatives are Forum Member-driven; and donor and implementation partners’ coordinate and prevent duplication.
The PAfTS focuses on four priority areas: ‘Electronic Commerce’; ‘Services’; ‘Deepening Forum Markets’; and ‘Comprehensive Connectivity’. Under these priority areas sits a range of regional trade initiatives, which form the basis of the Secretariat’s technical assistance to Forum Members.
The PAfTS sits under the ‘Resources and Economic Development’ and ‘Technology and Connectivity’ thematic area of the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent.