Nahrin Rahman Swarna

Nahrin Rahman Swarna is TRACE Consulting's technical director, responsible for leading technical research and project activities across trade facilitation, customs modernization, and policy reform. She provides high-level technical guidance on programs, proposals, and client engagements—including analytical frameworks, methodologies, and deliverables—and guides work planning, budgeting, and reporting to ensure quality implementation. Ms. Swarna leads the scoping and drafting of concept notes, expressions of interest, and technical proposals for trade, regulatory, and institutional-strengthening assignments; coordinates with government partners, private sector stakeholders, and development partners; and leads engagements involving government-facing digital trade systems, Time Release Study analysis, and consensus-building across regulatory agencies, including BFSA, NBR, and the Ministry of Commerce.

Her tenure with the USDA-funded Bangladesh Trade Facilitation (BTF) Project is the direct technical foundation for this role. Rising from Technical Coordinator (2021–2023) to Agricultural Trade Specialist (2023–2025) to Technical Advisor – Trade (2025), she led the project's trade-transparency workstream for agro-food imports, managing the agro/food Time Release Study and analyzing the benefits of risk-based clearance for agro-imports. She led the planning, development, and operationalization of the National Food Import Information Management System and led the design and implementation of the Agro-Trade Gateway and Import-Export Hub. She also convened and coordinated the Agro-Trade Working Group under the National Trade Facilitation Committee, running technical meetings, drafting concept notes and minutes, and building inter-agency consensus on procedural reform.

With over ten years of experience leading international trade, trade policy, trade facilitation, and export promotion initiatives, Ms. Swarna has specialized in bridging the gap between government agencies and private sector stakeholders to enhance market access and institutional strength—including through her tenure with Land O'Lakes Venture37 under the BTF Project and as a policy analyst for BRAC. Her earlier research career at the Bangladesh Foreign Trade Institute (BFTI) covered WTO issues, export competitiveness, and training-module design.

Her technical expertise spans conducting time-release studies, implementing risk-based clearance frameworks, and designing critical trade automation systems, supported by a toolkit that includes policy analysis, budget supervision, and data-driven research using Stata and SPSS to author legal regulations, guidelines, and country strategy papers.

Ms. Swarna holds an MSc in Economics from the University of Warwick, a BS in Economics from North South University, and a diploma in advanced trade policy from the Trade Academy, National Board of Trade, Sweden. She has also completed specialized international training in Business Process Analysis for Trade Facilitation (UNNExT/UN-ESCAP), Trade and Gender (UNCTAD), and the WTO Anti-dumping Agreement.