The following is excerpted from a 16 January 2013 press release by OECD.
Business competitiveness and export performance are increasingly tied to countries’ integration into global production chains and a willingness to open markets to wider imports, according to preliminary international trade data released today by the OECD and the WTO.
The joint OECD – WTO Trade in Value-Added Initiative breaks with conventional measurements of trade, which record gross flows of goods and services each time they cross borders. It seeks instead to analyse the value added by a country in the production of any good or service that is then exported, and offers a fuller picture of commercial relations between nations.
This release is available in its entirety at:
http://www.oecd.org/trade/newoecd-wtoanalysishighlightschangingfaceofglobaltrade.htm