Interviews
Concluding Doha Round is priority for G20 leaders, Lamy
28 Jun '10
5 min read
Meanwhile, many WTO Members have implemented measures to open up their economies over the past eighteen months. An example is Canada who eliminated this year a substantial number of import tariffs on manufacturing inputs, machinery and equipment, with the promise of more to come.
The multilateral trade rules have helped governments resist protectionist pressures and kept markets open throughout the crisis, playing the role they were designed for by preventing backsliding on the gains from more open and competitive world markets. For business, this adds up to a valuable insurance policy that reduces commercial risk and increases the long-term profitability of investment. For developing countries, this is a major achievement given their higher dependency on international trade.
But we are not out of the woods yet. Continued vigilance against protectionism is called for as long as unemployment levels remain unacceptably high. And even if the incidence of new trade restrictions has been limited so far, their accumulation constitutes an obstacle to the recovery. The longer trade restricting and distorting measures are left in place, the more entrenched the special economic interests depending on them will become, and the more difficult it will be to remove them.
An important step that G20 governments can take now is to announce exit strategies to unwind the trade restrictions and subsidies that they introduced temporarily and to start implementing those strategies as soon as domestic economic recovery takes hold.
Governments need to be reminded also that the WTO insurance policy for open trade cannot be taken for granted. The current contract was drawn up in the mid-1990s at the end of the Uruguay Round, and the crisis has shone the spotlight on areas where it needs updating.
Paying a new premium on the insurance policy by completing the Doha Development Round can go a long way towards achieving that goal, by setting lower, legally-binding limits on the extent to which trade restrictions and trade-related subsidies can be raised and protectionism can agitate. It will also deliver a very welcome stimulus package to the world economy. One that does not have to be financed out of national treasuries.
Click here for more details
The multilateral trade rules have helped governments resist protectionist pressures and kept markets open throughout the crisis, playing the role they were designed for by preventing backsliding on the gains from more open and competitive world markets. For business, this adds up to a valuable insurance policy that reduces commercial risk and increases the long-term profitability of investment. For developing countries, this is a major achievement given their higher dependency on international trade.
But we are not out of the woods yet. Continued vigilance against protectionism is called for as long as unemployment levels remain unacceptably high. And even if the incidence of new trade restrictions has been limited so far, their accumulation constitutes an obstacle to the recovery. The longer trade restricting and distorting measures are left in place, the more entrenched the special economic interests depending on them will become, and the more difficult it will be to remove them.
An important step that G20 governments can take now is to announce exit strategies to unwind the trade restrictions and subsidies that they introduced temporarily and to start implementing those strategies as soon as domestic economic recovery takes hold.
Governments need to be reminded also that the WTO insurance policy for open trade cannot be taken for granted. The current contract was drawn up in the mid-1990s at the end of the Uruguay Round, and the crisis has shone the spotlight on areas where it needs updating.
Paying a new premium on the insurance policy by completing the Doha Development Round can go a long way towards achieving that goal, by setting lower, legally-binding limits on the extent to which trade restrictions and trade-related subsidies can be raised and protectionism can agitate. It will also deliver a very welcome stimulus package to the world economy. One that does not have to be financed out of national treasuries.
Click here for more details
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