SEE ALSO:
press releases
WTO news
Mike Moore's speeches
Renato Ruggiero's speeches, 1995-99

People from all over the world — from 141 countries according to the statistics—do not simply visit the WTO Web Site. They make good use of it. In October 1998, some 20 million pages of text (31,836 megabytes) were downloaded from the Web Site.

Statistics for the past three years show a continuous rise in the number of WTO Web Site users and downloads, which are significantly higher that most Geneva-based organizations. The high level of downloads is a good measure of the usefulness of content.

Other highlights from the October 1998 Internet statistics (information based on statistics for requests and downloads. Each request or "hit" occurs when a user selects a subject or pages within the subject. Downloadable files range from services schedules to electronic versions of Trading Into the Future, to working documents within the DDF):

• Dispute-settlement reports represent 26% of all materials downloaded.
• The DDF (downloadable document files) represents 20% of all requests or "hits" on the site.
• The DDF section represents 16% of all downloads from the site. It's estimated that users downloaded about 3,000 copies of the electronic version of Trading Into the Future during October.
• Users accessed the site from 141 countries, including 21 African countries. The highest concentrations of users were from the United States (about 15%), Canada (4.2%), France (3.1%), Finland (2.8%), Germany (2.4%) and Japan (2.4%).
• 12% of users were from private companies, 7% from universities and 3% from NGOs.