KUALA LUMPUR (June 10): Malaysia has ranked 15th out of 65 countries on the Global Trade Modernisation Index (GTMI) 2024.

GTMI assesses economies’ readiness for digital trade across both the public and private sectors, as well as labor force capability.

The Asia Global Institute, ICC Digital Standards Initiative, and Milken Institute created the GTMI to progress our collective understanding of digital trade.

ICC Digital Standards Initiative managing director Pamela Mar said GTMI is to help structure discussions, whether with businesses, investors or the public sector on how to build up the pillars which will help an economy benefit from trade digitalisation.

Mar said the index also refers to modernizing – which incorporates trade facilitation, paperless trade, single windows, digitalisation and data interoperability, at any part of the international supply chain.

The other pillars are quite straight-forward and are derived from both academic inquiry and our experience in advancing digital trade across business and industry.

Trade openness reflects an economy’s willingness to engage with international trade on the basis of common rules and the free flow of goods and services.

Regulatory environment reflects an economy’s willingness to update its legal environment to permit the usage of digital across the economy; it is a fundamental prerequisite that protects businesses willing to take the plunge.

The GTMI indicators are divided into five categories that convey the unique dimensions of digital trade readiness: paperless trade, trade openness, regulatory environment, business readiness and human capital.

According to the index, Malaysia had a score of 80.8, trailing the top three nations Singapore, Netherlands and Germany which had scores of 95.7, 91.2 and 88.5 respectively.

Malaysia scored 24.4 for paperless trade, 8.1 for trade openness, 18.5 for business readiness, 8.5 for human capital and 21.3 for regulatory environment.