International business will become significantly more expensive if the impending Basel III regime does not make allowances for trade finance, bankers fear.

The new regulations designed to tame the world's banks and mend the post-crisis financial system are panning out with unintended consequences which threaten to hit the private sector where it hurts most. Michelle Price reports.

As international banks have pulled back their trade and commodity finance operations in Asia during the downturn, so increasingly sophisticated local players, particularly in China, are piling in. Writer Charlie Corbett

The severe slowdown of international trade flows and trade financing during the global crisis have impacted heavily on the export-dependent Latin American economies, yet there are signs that the market is starting to pick up.

Trade finance has taken a battering in the past 12 months, and governments across the world are desperately seeking measures to inject life into the world's clogged-up trade arteries. Writer Charlie Corbett

Short-term trade finance has come apart in Latin America but banks and governments are focusing on home markets to the detriment of a global solution. The effects are reverberating hard in emerging markets and a dependence on devalued commodities and over-aggressive hedging by exporters are exacerbating the situation. Writer John Rumsey.

Current WTO negotiations are encouraging a negative trend towards bilateralism and regionalism.

Bankers and governments have been moving back into trade financing in Africa and creating new financial structures to mitigate the risks.