About

A digital platform for global trade, investment and international cooperation

DigitConnection.ai · 数贸智联 · 全球贸易、投资与国际合作数字平台

We take international trade and investment data scattered across many sources, consolidate it into databases with consistent definitions, build research tools that work straight out of the box — and put them to use in research, teaching, consulting and cross-border cooperation.

The platform runs four lines of business — research and analytics, trade and investment promotion, professional publications and business applications — all resting on the same foundation of data and technology.

The international trade and investment research programme is supported by a central-universities education reform grant from the University of International Business and Economics (project no. 74260309).

Who We Serve

Who uses it

Universities and research institutes, for empirical analysis and classroom experiments.

Industry bodies and consultancies, for sector research and professional advisory work.

Trading enterprises and cooperatives, for finding markets, finding partners and training people.

01

Research & Analytics

贸易投资研究

Turning data and methods into working tools

Three laboratories, each covering one stretch of the journey.

  • NextLab | Trade Theory & Policy Analysis

    A through-line from theory to measurement. Five theoretical traditions yield testable propositions; propositions become measurement methods; the methods run on a multi-source trade database with consistent definitions. Standard indicators — revealed comparative advantage, gravity models, the product space — compute on demand, alongside an international-economics curriculum, interactive experiments and an AI trade assistant.

  • NextTrade | Trade Rules & Documentation

    Follows a deal from first enquiry to final settlement. Thirty-six core documents in six families form the execution base; the contracts strand covers SPA clause frameworks, commodity-association standard contracts and leading GAFTA cases; the management strand is a seven-step risk-control loop running from market analysis to post-trade review. End-to-end case studies — a letter-of-credit export, a branded import's first container — round it out.

  • NextFinance | International Finance & Investment

    Reads capital flows through a three-layer lens: prices, structure, risk. A trade-finance dashboard brings exchange rates, agricultural futures, US Gulf export basis, ocean freight rates and farm-input prices onto a single screen, drawing on FRED, the USDA, the World Bank and the Shanghai Shipping Exchange, updated automatically.

Beneath them sits a layer of digital infrastructure for data management, computation, modelling and content services. Its job is to make data and methods reusable, so nothing has to be rebuilt from scratch.

02

Trade & Investment Promotion

贸易投资促进

Building long-term connections between organisations

This pillar serves cross-border cooperation agencies, industry bodies, cooperatives and smaller enterprises. What matters is not any single transaction, but whether organisations can build lasting, trusted and mutually beneficial relationships.

  • China–Central Asia Trade & Investment Promotion Centre (Sinokaz.com)

    Market intelligence, cooperation projects, institutional resources and professional services for trade, investment, industrial cooperation and business exchange between China and Central Asia.

  • Global Cooperative Trade Map (CoopTrade)

    One map, one organisational directory, one set of industry profiles and cooperation listings — helping cooperatives, mutual-economy organisations and smaller enterprises across countries and regions find one another and connect.

  • Global Cooperative Research

    Bilingual coverage of the world cooperative movement, giving cooperative systems the knowledge they need to take part in international cooperation.

  • Made in China, Going Global

    A verifiable directory of Chinese enterprises going global, presenting manufacturers and producer-services providers to overseas buyers in full. The operative word is verifiable.

03

Publications

专业出版物

Turning research into something worth reading

  • International Trade Observer

    Tracks shifts in global trade, supply chains, investment policy, regional economies and international markets, offering data analysis, policy observation and industry research — with a downloadable library of public data indicators.

  • First Street Magazine

    Covers global society, business culture, institutional change and international exchange, recording the development experience of countries and regions through features and long-form narrative.

  • NextCMS Digital Publishing

    A content-management and digital-publishing system for professional institutions, handling the editing, organisation, release and long-term upkeep of research reports, thematic websites, institutional journals and multilingual content.

04

Business Applications

商务应用

Turning processes into systems

Every system can be configured and deployed around an institution's own workflows.

Shared Foundation

One shared foundation

共同底座

Everything across the four pillars rests on the same foundation. It has three defining traits:

  • A professional framework for international economics — analysis grounded in theory and method, with conclusions that can be tested, not news repackaged.
  • High-quality databases — consistent definitions, traceable sources and continuous updates; the same numbers reconcile across every pillar.
  • A wealth of real-world settings — research, teaching, trade documentation, market data and cross-border cooperation cross-check one another, keeping the analysis tied to real business.

Professional frameworks, reliable data and real scenarios: that is what sets our content apart from news aggregators and tool sites.

What we are building

Not a collection of stand-alone websites and software, but a connected digital system — one that links research, education, publishing, trade promotion and business practice, and helps institutions read global markets more clearly, do rigorous research and build cooperation across borders.