7 April 2022 ICC has joined forces with the Canadian and Australian governments, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Fragomen, Talent Beyond Boundaries, and RefugePoint to launch the Global Task Force on Refugee Labour Mobility with the aim of encouraging and supporting the adoption of labour complementary pathways for refugees. The Global Task Force on Refugee Labour Mobility is a new, multi-sectoral and multistakeholder initiative to increase refugee access to third country solutions via labour complementary pathways, through global dialogue and

1 April 2022 Following reports that the World Trade Organization is to cut the outlook for trade growth in 2022 by half, ICC has issued the following statement. ICC Secretary General John W.H. Denton AO said: “The WTO’s anticipated projections are very much in line with the systemic disruption to trade that we’re seeing throughout our global business network. At a micro-level this means yet more production outages, fewer jobs created and a worrying increase in consumer prices. “As we’ve said consistently in recent weeks,

30 March 2022 The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen their partnership and boost public-private collaboration. Signed by ICC Secretary-General John W.H. Denton AO and FAO Director-General QU Dongyu, the MoU aims to promote responsible investments in line with countries’ priorities, enhance communications and public-private collaboration, and facilitate knowledge-sharing. It will support the three pillars of sustainable development – economic, social and environmental – with an

21 March 2022 A new paper from the ICC World Chambers Federation Certificate of Origin Council calls on all economies negotiating Preferential Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) to ensure that the Rules of Origin Chapter provisions include an equivalent multi system. The measure would allow traders to choose between third party certified origin and self-declared origin statement methods when satisfying their preferential origin data. The ICC WCF CO Council Recommendation – Dual system paper, noted and reviewed by the ICC Global Customs and Trade Facilitation Commission,

18 March 2022 ICC and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to strengthen cooperation in areas of mutual interest in order to promote sustainable economic growth, revive global trade and advance the transition to a green economy. The two organisations already have a long history of cooperation across a variety of policy areas and initiatives, ranging from ICC’s input to the OECD initiative for safe international mobility during the COVID-19 pandemic, to collaboration on whistle-blowing guidelines.

15 March 2022 The International Chamber of Commerce and the World Trade Organization have today published the first-ever toolkit to help companies and government agencies adopt available standards to accelerate the digitalisation of trade processes. Drawing on stakeholder consultations through ICC’s Digital Standards Initiative over the past year, the report emphasises that one of the primary barriers to the adoption of paperless processes is a lack of awareness of existing standards for digital trade. Currently, fewer than 1% of trade documents are fully digitised globally