Services trade, supply-chain shocks and resilience: what data can tell policymakers
The Informal Working Group on Data for Services, Trade and Development Policies was established following the recommendations of the ninth session of the Multi-Year Expert Meeting (MYEM) on Trade, Services and Development. The Working Group seeks to identify services-trade data gaps, share good practice examples of data collection, identify relevant data sources and showcase innovative ways to use existing data for policymaking.
The first four meetings of the Working Group focused on data needs and good practices in services-trade data collection and use, including the potential of alternative and administrative data sources. The fifth meeting will build on this work by focusing on a specific policy question: how can services-trade, firm-level and administrative data help policymakers assess the role of services in supply-chain shocks and resilience, including by identifying services that act as shock absorbers, bottlenecks or sources of dependency.
The meeting will address the following guiding questions:
- What data sources are needed to identify services inputs that are critical for firm and economy-wide resilience?
- How can goods and services data be linked at firm level to distinguish services as shock absorbers from services as bottlenecks or dependencies?
- How can administrative data reveal direct and indirect exposure to shocks?
- What are challenges in using administrative data for this purpose?
The meeting responds to the Geneva Consensus in particular paragraph 80.15 which calls on UNCTAD “to improve the collection, accessibility and use of trade in services data to inform policy decisions, to enable all, particularly women and microenterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises, to leverage and benefit from trade in services and support the development of services-led trade export strategies.”
The meeting also follows up on the twelfth session of the MYEM, held on 15–16 April 2026, which encouraged UNCTAD to strengthen its work on services data and analyse the effects of external shocks on supply-chain resilience through a servicification lens.
The meeting aims to bring together data producers, policymakers and researchers, and to identify practical lessons in support of member States on services-trade data and evidence-based policymaking.
Luz Maria de la Mora is the Director of UNCTAD's Division on International Trade and Commodities. As a former Vice-Minister for International Trade and decades of government and private sector positions, Ms. de la Mora developed a career in international trade policy, negotiation, operations, and trade promotion.
During her tenure as Vice-Minister for International Trade of Mexico from 2018 to 2022, Ms. de la Mora led Mexico's trade and investment policy, overseeing fourteen free trade agreements with 51 countries. To bolster Mexico's development, she steered discussions in the World Trade Organization, the United States-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement, Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, and Pacific Alliance, among others. She also coordinated policy dialogues and handled private sector consultations.
Ms. de la Mora holds a PhD in Political Science from Yale University, USA, a Master's degree in International Affairs from Carleton University, Canada, and a Bachelor's degree in International Relations from El Colegio de México, Mexico.
She is fluent in English and Spanish, and proficient in French.
Martina Magli is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the Ludwig Maximilians Universität (LMU) Munich and a Research Fellow at CESifo, the University of Nottingham and the University of Surrey. Martina obtained her PhD in Economics from the University of Nottingham in 2019. Her research interests are at the intersection of international economics and labour economics, in particular trade in services, firms' dynamics and the impact of trade on labour markets.
Bhanu Gupta is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Ashoka University. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His research examines tax policy in developing countries, with a focus on optimal design and enforcement. He has collaborated with both central and state governments in India on policy-relevant research in direct and indirect taxation. His other work explored frictions in human capital formation and how firms respond to regulatory changes.
Saskia Meuchelböck is a Postdoc at the Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University, and a member of the Centre for Economic and Firm Research (CEFAU). She holds a doctoral degree in Quantitative Economics from Kiel University, Germany, and Master's degrees from Bayreuth University, Germany, and the Barcelona School of Economics, Spain.
Verena Wiedemann is an economist in the Economic Research Unit at the International Finance Corporation (World Bank Group). Her research interest lies at the intersection of trade, production networks, firm dynamics, and economic development. In 2023, she completed my PhD in Economics at the University of Oxford, where she remain affiliated with the Department of Economics and the Centre for the Study of African Economies as an academic visitor. She is a member of the World Bank's DaTax - a lab to study taxes, firms and jobs using microdata.
Andrea Ariu is Associate Professor at the University of Milan. He got his PhD from the Université catholique de Louvain. His research focuses on international trade (with focus on services trade) and international migration. Previous to joining the University of Milan Andrea held an Assistant Professor position at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, and Post-Doc positions at the Geneva School of Economics and Management and at the McDonough Business School, Georgetown University.
