Geneva: The World Trade Organization (WTO) has highlighted the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to significantly boost global trade, as outlined in the 2025 edition of the World Trade Report. The report predicts that with favorable policies, AI could enhance the value of cross-border flows of goods and services by nearly 40 percent by 2040, primarily due to productivity improvements and reduced trade costs.
According to Kuwait News Agency, the WTO's flagship publication underscores the necessity for policies that bridge the digital divide, boost workforce skills, and maintain open and predictable trading environments to ensure that the benefits of AI and trade are inclusive and widely shared. The report suggests that AI could lead to considerable increases in trade and GDP by 2040, with global trade expected to rise by 34 to 37 percent under various scenarios. These scenarios depend on the extent of policy and technological advancements among low-, middle-, and high-income economies.
Global GDP could potentially increase by 12 to 13 percent across different scenarios. The report emphasizes that trade can be a vital enabler of inclusive AI-supported growth by facilitating access to AI-enabling goods, such as raw materials, semiconductors, and intermediate inputs. In 2023, global trade in these goods was estimated at USD 2.3 trillion.
WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala noted in the report's foreword that AI has tremendous potential to reduce trade costs and enhance productivity, but access to AI technologies and digital trade participation remains uneven. She emphasized that with the right combination of trade, investment, and complementary policies, AI could create new growth opportunities in all economies.
The report also projects that if low- and middle-income economies halve their digital infrastructure gap with high-income economies and adopt AI more broadly, their incomes could rise by 15 percent and 14 percent, respectively. It stresses the importance of open and predictable trade policies, pointing out the sharp increase in quantitative restrictions on AI-related goods, which have grown from 130 in 2012 to nearly 500 in 2024. Access to AI-enabling goods is uneven, with some low-income economies facing bound tariffs as high as 45 percent.
Furthermore, the report highlights the need for investment in education and training and appropriate labor market policies to prevent growing inequality within economies. It also underscores the WTO's role in facilitating inclusive access to AI and its benefits, noting that the organization serves as a platform for discussing AI-related trade measures. The report mentions that 80 specific trade concerns related to AI have been raised at the WTO, with discussions on AI and inclusive trade taking place under the Work Programme on E-Commerce.
The report concludes by suggesting that additional commitments from WTO members, such as increased participation in the WTO's Information Technology Agreement and updated commitments under the General Agreement on Trade in Services, could make AI more inclusive and affordable.