This post was originally published on the eBay Inc. blog. 

eBay Inc. is drawing on its wealth of e-commerce data to play a global thought leadership role in a recent series of studies and public forums targeting international governments and industry leaders.

This week, eBay Inc. released a report titled, “Micro-Multinationals, Global Consumers and the World Trade Organisation” at the World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Meeting in Bali, Indonesia.

The study calls on ministers to give an ambitious new mandate to the WTO’s previously inactive Work Programme on Electronic Commerce. Created in 1998, the renewed WTO scheme will focus on governments, international organizations, businesses and civil societies looking to find solutions that foster global trade through technology-enabled small businesses.

In October, Rupert Keeley, senior vice president, PayPal, released “Commerce 3.0 for Development” at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Forum in Geneva. That paper was referenced at October’s Internet Governance Forum, also held in Bali.

The Commerce 3.0 for Development study analysed technology-enabled small businesses from eight economies in the developing world, including Jordan, Chile, Peru, Ukraine, South Africa, Indonesia, Thailand and India.

From 2004 to 2012, sales on our platforms increased by 800 per cent. And, in that period, access to the Internet grew by 300 per cent, leading to 95 percent of small businesses exporting.

It’s incredible stuff. With small businesses reaching an average of 30 to 40 international markets, online traders are experiencing remarkable success across developing economies. Furthermore, with up to 80 per cent of these small, technology-enabled business surviving past their first year, the report calls on international governments to implement a range of policy recommendations to keep the momentum building.

The findings mirror those from previous eBay studies on small businesses in the developed world. That’s because the technology-enabled global marketplace is truly flat, creating a parallel emerging model for trade, according to Sassoon Grigorian, head of public policy, APAC. “We call this the Global Empowerment Network, and it’s working for everyone, all across the world,” Grigorian says. “Businesses of all sizes, no matter if they’re in developed or developing countries, are able to trade with consumers around the world, thanks to our platforms.”

You can read “Commerce 3.0 for Development” in full here. To read “Micro-Multinationals, Global Consumers and the World Trade Organisation,” visit here.