Welcome!

Welcome to the World Integrated Trade Solution (WITS).

WITS is software developed by the World Bank, in close collaboration and consultation with the various International Organizations including, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), International Trade Center (ITC), United Nations Statistical Division (UNSD) and World Trade Organization (WTO). WITS gives access and allows users to retrieve information on trade and tariffs compiled by various international organizations.

WITS offers a lot of flexibility for retrieving information from the various databases, both at tariff line and HS 6-digit levels. WITS can convert automatically data between nomenclatures (from HS to BEC, GTAP, WTO MTN, ISIC ...) and produce product and country aggregated results which can be saved or exported to other applications for further treatment.

WITS also include simulation tools which allow producing new tariff structures using pre-defined or user-defined tariff change scenarios (Doha negotiations, Unilateral MFN applied, preferential agreements) or simulating the impact of tariff changes on trade flows (trade creation and diversion), tariff revenues, and consumer welfare using partial equilibrium modeling tools.

Online Help: Organization and Conventions

This help is organized the following way:

• Introduction introduces you to the World Integrated Trade Solution (WITS) and gives an overview of the product.

• WITS Basics introduces conceptual information about trade and market access and the databases. It is therefore highly recommended even to those who have been already using WITS.
• Working with Trade Data explains how to retrieve and analyze trade data from the various databases within WITS.
• Working with Protection Data mostly focuses on how to retrieve and analyze tariff data from the various databases within WITS.
• SMART focuses on a partial equilibrium simulation tool - SMART - available in WITS.
• Utilities presents several tools available in WITS either in the Utilities menu or in the Help and Information menu.
• Annexes contain a Glossary of Trade and Market Protection Related Terms, the list of countries and codes used in the various databases, the list of Trade Control Measures and their respective codes as used in TRAINS.

You can read the topics of this help in order, or you can read the Introduction and WITS Basics and then start with the topic that best suits your interest.

Typographical conventions

The following typographical conventions are used in this manual:

• blue texts indicate WITS commands, features and elements;
• A Blue underlined text indicates a reference to another topic, a section of a topic, or a link to the web.
• Numbered lists describe step-by-step processes;
• Blue background notes (or gray if black and white copy) provide with important information.

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WITS Online Help

The World Bank, 2010