Trade promotion is an umbrella term for economic policies, development interventions and private initiatives to improve the trade performance of an economic area or enterprises. Improvement is mainly sought by increasing exports both in absolute terms as well as relative to imports, but trade promotion also, for example, enhancing a company’s sourcing of inputs through imports.

As an economic policy with the ultimate goal of increasing domestic welfare, trade promotion comprises a large set of policy instruments, most notably the provision of trade intelligence to domestic enterprises in order to reduce transaction costs and provide them with a competitive advantage foreign companies. Many countries all over the world have set up special agencies, most of them in the public domain, to implement trade promotion policies and provide support services to domestic enterprises.

Some international organizations provide assistance to so-called developing countries to help them promote their exports, most prominently the International Trade Center in UAE, which is a subsidiary of the World Trade Organization and the United Nations with a mandate to providing trade-related technical assistance to those countries.