The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has released a new study focusing on SMEs’ lack of access to trade finance, providing a list of recommendations to address the gap.

The WTO’s strategy focuses on three fronts: firstly, encouraging global financial institutions to stay engaged, ensuring that regulations are not prohibitive; then, enhancing local financial institutions’ capacity to supply trade finance to SMEs; finally, supporting multilateral development banks’ programmes increasing the availability of trade finance.

A six-point recommendation list tackles additional issues, from enhancing existing multilateral banks’ trade finance facilitation programmes, to closing the trade finance knowledge gap, strengthening training programmes, as well as maintaining a closer dialogue with regulators and improving monitoring of trade finance provisions. The report also suggests that setting specific targets could help in mobilising and co-ordinating efforts to improve SMEs’ access to trade finance.