GEOGRAPHY PRACTICAL ENQUIRY

TECHNOLOGY AND TRADE

ENQUIRY QUESTIONS:
1. What impact does technology have on trade?
2. What features highlights that technology is the most compatible for trade growth?
Over the last few decades, the internet has entered every corner of our lives, from social
interactions to entertainment and work, and has fundamentally reshaped our economies, slashing
the cost of acquiring and trading information. It has fueled the digital revolution, fundamentally
changing the ways in which we communicate, consume and produce, and it has profoundly
transformed international trade, in terms of what we trade, how we trade, and who is trading.
Trade has always been shaped by technology but the rapid development of digital technologies in
recent times has the potential to transform international trade profoundly in the years to come.
The World Trade Report 2018 examines how digital technologies 8affect trade costs, the nature
of what is traded and the composition of trade. It estimates how global trade may be affected by
these technologies over the next 15 years.

AIM OF THE RESEARCH:

The aim of this research is to validate the utilization of technology in trade and how it has
impacted it whether beneficially or detrimental. Which eventually led us to compare online and
in-shop (traditional) selling/business.

RESEARCH METHOD:
This research comprises of both qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection such as
graphs, pie charts and online surveys.
In our research we chose random sampling method where sample members were selected by
chance.
Primary data was the main research method for this enquiry, although secondary data was also
seeked to prop up our primary data. For primary data, a survey was conducted. It was a
completely unbiased questionnaire demonstrating that it was a quantitative sampling.
For the secondary research, data was collected from websites such as www.gco.gov.qa,
www.qatarchmber.com, further more data from reports of the WTO (world trade organization)
was issued.
https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/publications_e/world_trade_report18_e.pdf
RISK ASSESMENT:
 Conducting interviews publically is usually prohibited in libraries and malls, in this case
online surveys could be very supportive in the situation.
 Interviewing people face-face could be a major problem during the data collection due to
current pandemic, in this case opting for online surveys would be very convenient and
suitable.

DATA ANALYSIS:
According to our Questionnaire 83.3% of traders/sellers sell their products, for reasons
like:
 Convenience
 Attraction, (advertisement from social media)
 Efficiency
 They can reach out to more people using social media.
 Products can be sold within the country and abroad, wide-range of customers all around
the world.
 Ease of gaining customers online.
 Less money spent and more gained.

… 16.6% selling products in a retail store/traditionally, for reasons like:

 Getting noticed in shopping malls in cause of less retail shops
 Guarantee of quality and products
 Several empirical studies document increases in skill intensity within all sectors, favoring the
technological change explanation over trade.
Empirical studies of skill‐biased technological change are typically based on a simple production
or cost function framework and limited information on technology and labor composition. In
contrast, we simultaneously assess the impacts of trade, technology, and outsourcing on shifts in
labor demand using a dynamic cost function framework and comprehensive measures of
workforce composition and investment in technology. Our findings indicate that technological
change has had the largest impact on changes in labor composition. However, the indirect impact
of trade on shifts in employment augments its direct impact because trade stimulates
computerization, which further exacerbates skill‐biased technological change.

PROBLEMS DURING THE RESEARCH:

 Includes people not taking the questionnaire seriously/non serious answers, irrelevant
answers or not what we’re looking for, inconsistency of group members.
 Online surveys lead to poor and irrelevant response of the people as many people were
unable to understand the questions.
 While conducting online surveys it wasn’t certain whether we’re interacting with a real
person.
 Copy the data was another issue during the research.

EVALUATION:
To sum up all that has been mentioned, The Report finds that one of the most significant impacts
of digital technologies is the extent to which they will reduce trade costs. In addition, digital
technologies will affect the composition of trade by increasing the services component, fostering
trade in certain goods such as time-sensitive products, changing patterns of comparative
advantage and affecting the complexity and length of global value chains. A number of
simulations outlined in the Report show that future technological changes are expected to
increase trade growth, especially in trade in services, and that developing countries are likely to
gain an increasing share of global trade.
It provides a unified and synthetic treatment of various models so that their common elements
can be appreciated and their essential distinguishing features can be understood.

Group:
Ahmed Tariq, Romail Ahmed, Ahmed El ebriq, Muhannad, Abdullah Tariq ///