The International Trade Centre (ITC) yesterday launched a market price information portal, an online database that will provide access to live updates and prices for more than 100 agriculture products.

The portal aims at improving transparency in trade and help improve the decision-making processes for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises to export.

The portal will also provide research and up-to-date agricultural commodities news.

The market price information portal has been developed in response to a growing need among MSMEs and small-scale farmers for access to up-to-date market information.

In developing countries in particular, access to such information is often scarce, unaffordable, inaccessible or out of date.

By providing timely information on prices free of charge, the Market Price Information portal will better enable SMEs and farmers to stay updated, make sound business decisions, and boost their competitiveness.

Announcing the market price information portal, ITC Executive Director Arancha González said: "Access to real-time and sector-specific market price information will help strengthen the ability of MSMEs to make decisions and anticipate shifting trends in international markets. The Market Price Information portal will help them become more competitive, make it easier to connect to global markets, and enable them to grow their businesses”.

Currently based on data provided by Thomson Reuters and USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), ITC is already working on an expansion of the Market Price Information portal, including the collection and dissemination of domestic price information.

A tailor-made data entry tool has been developed to allow trade and investment support institutions, cooperatives and producers to upload and consult local market prices related to their products.

This will allow such organisations to embed a customised version of the Market Price Information portal on their own website.

The same, local information will then simultaneously be made available on the global Market Price Information portal.

The market price information portal provides accurate daily and historic market price information sectors including: agricultural soft commodities; culinary spices and herbs; dairy/livestock, fish and seafood; fresh fruit and vegetables; forestry, fibre, textiles; grains and pulses; and oilseeds, oils, nuts and fats.

The portal is available on: mpi.intracen.org

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