ICC Open Markets Index

The fewer the barriers to the cross-border flow of goods, services, capital and labour, the greater the openness of an economy. The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) publishes the Open Markets Index (OMI) with the aim of presenting a balanced and reliable measurement of an economy’s openness to trade. ICC hopes that the OMI may serve as a guide for governments in implementing reforms to enable trade as a driver of sustainable growth and job creation.

The period covered by the report concludes at the end of 2015, as not all economic indicators for 2016 were reported by the economies at the time of compilation. The report therefore shows results from a period of trade and investment that led to a gradual slowdown in global trade growth (1.3% for 2016).
The OMI 2017 set out in this report covers four main areas of focus, which are further split across 23 indicators intended to cover factors of openness in each area.

The four main components of OMI 2017 are:

1. Observed openness to trade
2. Trade policy settings
3. Foreign direct investment (FDI) openness
4. Trade-enabling infrastructure