While there is no single accepted definition of digital trade, there is growing understanding that it encompasses trade in goods and services that are digitally ordered or delivered. That is, digital trade involves digitally ordered but physically delivered trade in goods and services (e.g. the purchase of a book through an on-line marketplace or booking a stay in an apartment through a matching application) and digitally delivered trade (e.g. movie or music streaming services or receiving architectural designs from foreign providers).
Data flows underpin digital trade. Data is not only a means of production and delivery, it is also an asset that can itself be traded, and a means through which global value chains (GVCs) are organised. Data supports? trade facilitation for physical goodss, and is at the core of new and rapidly growing technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, the Internet of Things (IoT), and additive manufacturing.
