Trade promotion organisations in the pandemic world

A 2021–22 Survey of Trade Promotion Organisations (TPOs) conducted by the World Bank to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic affected their functioning uncovers significant heterogeneity in TPOs’ characteristics across countries, but also income levels. This led to different responses to the pandemic in terms of changes in TPOs’ budgets, the adoption of a COVID recovery plan, and the implementation of virtual programs to help exporters. High-income countries experienced higher increases in budget and were more likely to adopt COVID recovery plans and virtual tools than low-income countries. Using the gravity model, we find that the behaviour of TPOs in high-income countries was correlated with higher exports