About Trade Sentinel

Trade Sentinel is an early monitoring mechanism for trade policy changes in South Asian countries. This region has historically lagged in trade integration, with its regional trade falling short of its potential. The Sentinel is dedicated to providing a comprehensive, curated, and easily understandable tracking of all trade policy shifts as they happen, including tariff and non-tariff measures on imports, export controls, service restrictions, and foreign direct investment (FDI) policies.

Currently, the platform offers near real-time alerts, trends, and analysis of trade policy changes in five South Asian countries: Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. It also features a user-friendly tool that allows for the comparison of import tariffs across these countries by specific products selected by the user. When relevant, any trade policy notifications issued by the government are also shown for those products.

The Sentinel is crafted to be a significant public-good, freely accessible via a website. The databases developed and analyses provided are downloadable for free. It stands as a crucial addition to the arsenal of tools available for monitoring trade and investment measures. This initiative receives generous financial support from the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in Tokyo, Japan, while the Centre for Social and Economic Progress in New Delhi has been equally generous with in-kind support for office space and logistics for meetings and events.