International Trade Centre opens Brussels office at UN House

(Brussels/Geneva) - The Geneva-based International Trade Centre (ITC) - the joint agency of the United Nations and the World Trade Organization (WTO) - opens its Brussels office at UN House, joining more than 30 UN agencies, at a time of major shifts in the global aid and trade landscape.

Delivering opening remarks at the event, ITC Executive Director Pamela Coke-Hamilton said: 'Opening new corporate offices is rare for us. We only take that step when we feel that our mission to support small businesses in undertaking sustainable, inclusive trade cannot fully succeed otherwise. That need was plainly evident here.'

She added: 'If we were going to continue living up to our mission-and set an example for others of what it means to choose cooperation, sustainability, and inclusion in our fraught historical moment-then we needed a physical presence in the epicentre of the EU, whose role in the global trade and development architecture cannot be overstated.'

Mr. Koen Doens, Director-General for International Partnerships (DG INTPA), European Commission, said in his remarks: 'Europe has the ambition of being the partner of choice for investment, trade and co-creation of value chains, not of dependencies.'

He added: 'Global Gateway is an agenda to build resilient supply chains that are designed with the interests of all participants in mind, those of Europe, certainly, but also those of our partners. Now for this work, the investment environment must be right. Regulations, standards, logistics, SMEs, access to finance, the whole enabling ecosystem in our partner countries must function. That's precisely where the partner like ITC is absolutely indispensable. ITC occupies a niche that very few organizations can replicate. It's at the intersection of trade policy, private sector competitiveness and practical technical assistance. This helps create exactly the enabling environment that Global Gateway investments need, to generate sustainable returns.'

Mr. Georges Van Montfort, Deputy Director of the UNDP Representation Office in Brussels, said at the launch event: 'Today marks an important moment as we warmly welcome the International Trade Centre to UN House here in Brussels. This comes at an opportune time, particularly as the European Union advances its Global Gateway strategy with a strong emphasis on investment and private sector partnerships. The role of institutions like ITC therefore becomes ever more critical.'

As part of office-opening activities, ITC convened a roundtable under the Global SME Ministerial process, bringing together representatives of 26 countries and institutions to exchange best practices in policymaking to support the growth of small businesses, including through a new policy-sharing platform. Discussions focused on raising the visibility of small businesses in the global trade agenda, and ensuring their perspectives and challenges are reflected in national policies and regulatory frameworks.

This is ITC's second major international step to increase its presence in countries or economic blocs that support or benefit from its work. The Brussels office launch follows the opening of ITC's first regional office, at the United Nations Office at Nairobi, in November 2025, in line with broader efforts to strengthen partnerships within countries and regions of work.

The newly updated ITC Trade Map was also presented to roundtable participants and journalists, as part of the Brussels office opening.

Trade Map 2.0 - now updated with 2025 data and features that allow users to embed charts, receive automatic data alerts and manage a personal workspace - comes at a time of geopolitical shifts, with regional policies and new trade agreements reshaping the competitive landscape, and new opportunities for small businesses to connect to global supply chains. Navigating this environment requires the ability to tap into timely, reliable market intelligence for decision-making.

Trade Map is part of a suite of ITC tools that offer access to one of the world's most comprehensive trade intelligence ecosystems, helping users track evolving tariffs, conduct competitive analysis, and monitor trade dynamics including dependencies and opportunities for supply and market diversification, as well as investment in strategic sectors.

A webinar on the updated Trade Map will take place on 30 April 2026. Further details and registration information are available at: Webinar Registration - Zoom.

Note for the Editor

About the International Trade Centre - The International Trade Centre is the joint agency of the World Trade Organization and the United Nations. ITC assists small and medium-sized enterprises in developing and transition economies to become more competitive in global markets, thereby contributing to sustainable economic development within the frameworks of the Aid-for-Trade agenda and the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals.

For more information, visit https://www.intracen.org.

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