25th September 2025
The Future of Investment and Trade (FIT) Partnership has been launched by fourteen small- and medium-sized, trade-dependent economies -Brunei, Chile, Costa Rica, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Morocco, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Rwanda, Singapore, Switzerland, the UAE, and Uruguay-through a virtual Ministerial Meeting attended by WTO Director-General Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
The FIT Partnership will function as an agile and informal platform to foster cooperation between public and private stakeholders, while serving as a catalyst for new initiatives that address emerging challenges and opportunities in global trade. Its initial focus will be on three priority domains-supply chain resilience, investment facilitation, and non-tariff barriers and trade facilitation-with trade technology acting as a cross-cutting enabler across these areas.
Pradeep S. Mehta, Secretary General of CUTS International, a leading public policy research and advocacy organisation working on trade, investment, and sustainable development, said, “The FIT Partnership is a timely initiative, particularly as disruptions to global trade pose a major threat to the stability and prosperity of small and medium economies. Collective action is essential to ensure that open trade remains the rule rather than the exception.”
Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade and Industry, Gan Kim Yong, announced the launch of the FIT Partnership, emphasising that it reflects the shared commitment of participating countries to uphold the rules-based multilateral trading system and to address both current and future challenges. He expressed confidence that the Partnership would become a source of innovation that could be scaled up to the multilateral level to strengthen the WTO.
In his statement, Mehta added: “CUTS International welcomes the launch of the FIT Partnership. Given the growing volatility in global trade, especially for small and medium-sized economies, this platform can play a critical role in advocating for a rules-based, transparent, and fair trading system. It can help strengthen supply chain resilience, reduce non-tariff barriers, and facilitate investment flows”.
Hereby, CUTS International urges all participating countries to leverage this initiative not only to tackle current challenges but also to anticipate future disruptions, ensuring that open and inclusive trade continues to drive sustainable growth.
Looking ahead, the first Ministerial Meeting of the FIT Partnership will take place in Singapore on the sidelines of the Bloomberg New Economy Forum (19-21 November 2025), where members aim to endorse concrete, solution-oriented initiatives that will be publicly announced.
For more information, please contact:
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Dr. Riti Srivastava, +91-9810-997325, rst@cuts.org
Vijay Singh, +91-80766-19084, Email: vs1@cuts.org