Trade
United Nations, A/ AC. 257/ L.
2, June 2000
"Enhancing
trade for financing development
5. Enhancing trade
for financing development: ensuring market access for
products of export interest to developing countries; addressing issues
related to the decline of public revenues from trade liberalization;
strengthening regional cooperation/ integration for expansion of
global trade; capacity-building and technical assistance, including
assistance for trade negotiations and dispute settlement; special
needs of Africa, the least developed countries, small island
developing States, landlocked and transit developing countries and
other developing countries as well as countries with economies in
transition with special difficulties "
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United Nations, A/AC.254/24,
March 2001
"Heading
III: Trade
The expansion of international trade and
integration into the world economy are indispensable instruments for
promoting long-term economic growth and combating poverty. A central
challenge is to ensure a stable, predictable, non-discriminatory,
transparent, fair and equitable multilateral trading system in support
of development, which contributes in a coherent manner to spread the
benefits of trade to all developing countries, ensuring rapid and
sustained growth of incomes and exports to finance their development
goals.
Trade barriers and producer subsidies by
developed countries currently impose costs on developing countries
that significantly exceed aid flows. Lifting them would allow many
more developing country products reach the markets of developed
countries. The lifting of conventional barriers should not be followed
by the introduction of new ones –even if these are in connection
with commendable objectives, such as to improve labor or environmental
practices. Support for trade liberalization and improvement of
standards and safeguards must be separate and reinforce, not
undermine.
Trade liberalization in developing countries
must be well-tailored and phased in line with national economic and
social objectives and be complemented with greater diversification and
a substantial expansion of national productive capacities of
developing countries, including through appropriate transfers of
technology and capacity building. Access to appropriate risk
management mechanisms is also an important objective.
How to support the enhancement of the
development dimension of multilateral trade agreements? How to ensure
that any future WTO trade negotiations be best linked to development
goals? How to provide further political impetus to the work taking
place at the WTO and elsewhere to enhance the impact of trade on
development?
How to deepen the political momentum building
towards ensuring full market access of LDC’s exports to the markets
of all industrialized countries and taking further positive steps in
this direction for other developing countries? By type of beneficiary
country (SIDS, others)? By sector (e.g., focusing in the first
instance on textiles and clothing and on the reduction of barriers of
trade in agricultural products, in particular developed countries’
subsidies for agricultural products)? By impact (e.g. focusing on the
removal of tariff peaks or anti-dumping measures affecting the export
products of developing countries, expanding systems of preferences)?
By advancing simultaneously in all these fronts?
How best to enhance the contribution of
regional and subregional cooperation and integration as building
blocks to foster global trade and development?
How to strengthen the contribution of the
World Bank, governments, donors and other financial and development
institutions, both public and private, in support of a diversified
export capacity to benefit from trade? How best to ensure fully-funded
programmes to assist developing countries to remove supply-side
constrains and improve trade infrastructure?
How to strengthen the existing mechanisms of
the international financial institutions for compensatory balance of
payments support in times of commodity price shocks?
How can the relevant international
organizations support developing countries to gain access to risk
management instruments in commodity markets and cope with persistent
terms of trade decline and commodity price instability?
How can the relevant international
organizations contribute to ensure access for developing countries, in
particular vulnerable countries such as SIDS, to insurance against
natural catastrophes?
Which steps should be taken on a priority
basis to match the requirements of technical and financial assistance
for capacity-building in this regard, including in areas such as trade
negotiations and dispute settlement as well as in support of
implementation capacities? How to support the Integrated Framework for
LDCs and build upon its experience for enhancing the coherence of
trade capacity-building for other developing countries?"
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Report
of the Secretary-General
to the Preparatory Committee for the
High-Level International Intergovernmental Event
on Financing For Development
United Nations, A/AC.257/12,
January 2001
"Donor countries and
international financial and developmental institutions should pursue a
global, fully-funded programme to assist interested developing
countries, particularly least developed countries and other low-income
countries, in liberalizing, as appropriate, the trade sector of their
economies, building the necessary policy, physical and human capacity
to trade competitively in goods and services, and ensuring that
gradual trade liberalization is part of, and consistent with,
development and poverty reduction strategies.(...)
All trading partners should
liberalize trade in goods and services of particular interest to
developing economies, seeking to achieve bound, expanded and
commercially meaningful market access for such goods and services.
Particular attention should be given, in the first instance, to the
full integration of textiles and clothing into WTO; the reduction of
barriers of trade in agricultural products; the removal of tariff
peaks and escalation affecting the export products of developing
countries; and the expansion, where appropriate, of Generalized System
of Preferences (GSP) schemes.(...)
All developed countries should
immediately provide duty-free, quota-free market access to all
non-arms exports of least developed countries and highly indebted poor
countries and consider doing the same for other developing countries,
particularly the countries of Africa, small island developing States,
landlocked and transit developing countries, and other developing
countries, as well as countries with economies in transition with
special difficulties in attracting financing for development.(...)
WTO members should ensure that
the WTO agreements and their associated disciplines are applied in
ways conducive to development. Developed country members of WTO and
international financial institutions should ensure that adequate
financial and technical assistance is provided to developing countries
for their implementation of the WTO agreements. WTO members should
also not use contingency measures and restrictive rules of origin, and
should ensure that standards, technical regulations and Sanitary and
Phytosanitary Standards (SPS) measures are not used to obstruct trade,
that they can be adequately observed by developing countries and that
appropriate assistance is provided to enable them to do so.(...)
The international financial
institutions should continue adapting and making more flexible the
mechanisms through which they provide balance of payments support in
times of commodity price shocks.(...)
The relevant international
organizations should urgently formulate measures to help developing
countries to deal with commodity price risks, including the possible
establishment of a new global facility to facilitate developing
country access to commodity price risk management and structured
commodity finance mechanisms and to assist in the development of
regional and national commodity exchanges.(...)
The multilateral development
banks should spearhead the development of a major programme to assist
developing countries, particularly small and vulnerable economies, in
diversifying their export base in terms of both the product mix (goods
and services) and destination markets. The importance of export
diversification programmes should be kept in mind by bilateral donors
and all multilateral aid agencies in considering expenditure and
assistance priorities. WTO should monitor vigilantly the use of
anti-dumping measures and any voluntary export restraint agreements,
particularly when used against developing countries.(...)
Donor countries should
contribute rapidly and generously to the Trust Fund established in the
context of the Integrated Framework. WTO members should expand the
scope of the Integrated Framework beyond the least developed
countries, to cover other developing countries, particularly countries
of Africa, small island States and landlocked and transit developing
countries."
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Joint
Statement of the Co-Chairmen
at the Conclusion of the First Part of the
Third Session of the Preparatory Committee
United Nations, 8 May 2001
" III. Trade
The active discussion of international trade
in the context of financing for development that began at the Second
Session of the Prep Com resumed in the current session and involved
many Member States, as well as a number of international organizations
and civil society representatives.There was a convergence of views
that trade can and should give an important boost to economic growth
and employment, that it is for most countries the central source of
external resources for development, that global trade liberalization
can offer important development opportunities but also serious
economic challenges, and that countries differ greatly in their
capacity to take advantage of the opportunities and successfully meet
the challenges. The international community already acknowledges
different country capacities by granting, to varying degrees, special
preferences, financial and technical assistance in trade-related
matters to specific groups of countries, in particular, Africa, least
developed, small island developing States and land-locked developing
countries. In addition, today there is a greater appreciation of the
need for realistic appraisals of the appropriate sequencing and time
frame for implementation of trade policy commitments of developing
countries. In this regard, several countries reported how helpful it
has been to them to liberalize trade first within regional groupings.
The discussion underlined the inescapable
linkage of trade and development policy and the importance given that
all countries should meet all of their trade policy commitments,
including understandings agreed as "best efforts". Many
speakers observed that, while they are ready to expand their exports,
they do not yet enjoy sufficient access to export markets even though
many of their export products are part of the "built-in
agenda" of the WTO.
It was also emphasized that gaining increased
market access is only valuable to developing countries if they can
increase production to supply those markets. This is a development
question, entailing investment in export capacity and related
infrastructure. It thus involves domestic and international financial
systems, and their public and private institutions. Moreover,
liberalization of the trade regime of developing countries sometimes
embodies substantial adjustment costs, which, as noted by the WTO
membership in its paper for the Prep Com, may require appropriate
international support policies and compensatory measures (para 6). It
was also observed that before proposals for international trade policy
changes are made, social and environmental impact assessments should
be undertaken at national level, as they typically are for large
investment projects. In addition, several speakers underlined the
importance of stronger policies to ameliorate the negative effects of
terms-of-trade losses and commodity price volatility.
Toward policy priorities
Linking international trade negotiations to
development goals: The liberalization and reform process, as noted by
several speakers and as described in the paper of the WTO membership,
aims to improve market access in all sectors and elaborate balanced
and equitable rules for the conduct of international trade in goods
and services (para 9). The WTO membership described as fundamental the
principles of non-discrimination, predictability, transparency, equity
and provisions for special and differential treatment (para 7), a
point echoed by speakers in the Prep Com. In addition, speakers were
concerned that the lifting of conventional trade barriers not be
followed by imposition of new ones, even if aimed at commendable
objectives. The ILO noted that it was seeking parallel progress on
labour standards that should reinforce work on trade policy. More
generally, the WTO membership called for the mainstreaming of trade
policies into the wider framework of development and poverty reduction
strategies (para 19). It was suggested that FfD might focus on
bottlenecks to development and how to resolve them so that the
benefits of trade liberalization would be fully realized. It was also
observed that adequate growth of global effective demand was necessary
to translate improved trade opportunities into increased trade itself,
an issue with strong systemic aspects.
Developing appropriate arrangements for
capacity building in trade matters: Speakers in the Prep Com welcomed
steps to strengthen the Integrated Framework for technical assistance
for least developed countries. It is important, not only to boost the
capacity of these countries to implement WTO agreements, but also to
raise their ability to participate in trade negotiations. Other
developing countries also have trade-related capacity-building needs.
There is considerable interest in increasing trade-related technical
assistance overall and better coordinating the various bilateral and
multilateral assistance efforts.
Mechanisms for managing risk in international
trade: There are certain inescapable risks that countries face in
international trade and most financial mechanisms for mitigating their
effects are provided through the private sector. The European Union
has recently adopted a "system of additional support" to
help the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries with which it is
associated to mitigate instability in export earnings. Speakers noted
two other international initiatives:
The Compensatory Financing Facility (CFF) of
IMF provides financial assistance, usually in association with
stand-by arrangements, to countries experiencing temporary export
earnings shortfalls and temporary excess cereal import costs. It was
suggested that the scope for use of the CFF be expanded and that it be
strengthened. The World Bank established an international task force
on commodity risk management in developing countries to explore the
potential role of international cooperation in facilitating access of
developing countries to market instruments to deal with intra-annual
commodity price fluctuations. Speakers welcomed this initiative,
although major policy aspects were still to be worked out, such as the
cost of premiums to be borne by producers and whether to subsidize use
of such a mechanism, at least initially. Work on the initiative should
be accelerated. Insurance against natural disasters is generally
provided by the international private sector. It has been suggested
that relevant international organizations could help boost access of
vulnerable countries, such as small-island developing States, to such
insurance. This could be a matter for public/private partnerships.
There is a need to proceed with the built-in
agenda of the WTO.
Developing institutional arrangements for UN/WTO
dialogue: WTO observed that although there were no "organic"
links between the United Nations and WTO, "strong working
links" had evolved. Ideas were expressed for how the dialogue
between the United Nations and WTO might be organized, building on the
experience of ECOSOC and the Bretton Woods institutions."
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High-Level
Panel on
Financing for Development -
Recommendations & Technical Report
United Nations, A/55/1000, 26
June 2001
" Recommendations:
Trade
Thanks to eight rounds of multilateral
negotiations, much has been done in half a century to dismantle tariff
and non-tariff barriers to trade. But by far the main beneficiaries of
trade liberalization have been the industrial countries. Developing
countries’ products continue to face significant impediments in rich
country markets. Basic products in which developing countries are
highly competitive are precisely the ones that carry the highest
protection in the most advanced countries. These include not only
agricultural products, which still face pernicious protection, but
also many industrial products subject to tariff and non-tariff
barriers. Therefore, there is an urgent need to initiate a new round
of multilateral trade negotiations. Although some panel members felt
it was crucial that developed countries first rebuilt confidence in
the WTO by delivering on both the spirit as well as the letter of
previous agreements, the Panel as a whole strongly endorses the
launching of a new round of trade liberalization at the next WTO
ministerial meeting, to be held in Qatar next November.
The Panel recommends that the following
issues be addressed:
The implementation of the Uruguay Round. This
issue concerns not only full compliance with the commitments that
industrial countries made under the Uruguay Round but also a
responsible review—open and generous but consistent with free trade
principles—of some regulations that developing countries have found
either extremely hard to implement or outright counterproductive.
Chief among these are standards (technical barriers to trade),
anti-dumping, trade-related intellectual property rights (TRIPS),
trade-related investment measures (TRIMS), subsidies, customs
valuation, and phase-in periods for developing countries.
§ Liberalization in agriculture. In this
field, it is vital for developing countries to discuss and get from
industrial countries a significant improvement in market access, an
elimination of export subsidies, and a tightening of support to
domestic producers.
§ The total elimination of remaining trade
barriers in manufacturing. Existing barriers in this sector are mostly
at the expense of developing countries. An obvious, but sadly not
unique, example of this injustice is protection on textiles and
clothing. Some panel members consider that welfare gains for all
parties would be even greater if the new round also liberalizes trade
in services.
Technical Report:
" Trade
Trade is an engine of growth. Both the
competitive pressures needed to produce successfully for the export
market and access to the imports necessary to build a modern economy
are essential for any sort of rapid growth, equitable or otherwise,
environment-friendly or environment-destroying. Making growth
equitable and sustainable is the task of other policies; there is in
general little reason to regard trade as inherently biased one way or
the other on those dimensions. But since poverty in a poor country
cannot be overcome without sustained rapid growth, the willingness and
opportunity to trade liberally are critical to long-run poverty
reduction. It is notable that, at least since the 1960s, every country
that has pulled its people out of poverty has made a significant
opening to trade a central feature of its economic strategy.
The past decade has seen a notable
liberalisation of trade by developing countries, analogous to that
earlier undertaken by today’s industrial countries, at least as
regards trade among themselves. Unfortunately, the liberal trade
regime that now prevails among the industrial countries (except in
agriculture) is not matched by free market access extended to the
products of interest to developing countries. In part this is
doubtless due to simple protectionism—jobs were perceived to be at
stake. But in part it is also due to the earlier attempts of
developing countries to stand outside the process of making bargains
about trade, and to expect to benefit from concessions without making
concessions in return. That finally changed in the most recent round
of multilateral trade negotiations, the Uruguay Round, where
developing countries did participate actively in the bargaining. Their
involvement won them some notable gains, such as the tariffication of
quantitative restrictions in agriculture and the phasing out of the
Multi-Fibre Arrangement—albeit gains with a long time fuse. One
important task of the coming years will be to make sure that the
industrial countries fully implement their commitments under the
Uruguay Round accords to liberalise trade in areas of great
significance to developing countries.
Even after the Uruguay Round commitments are
completely implemented, however, substantial barriers to
developing-country exports will remain. One recent (post-Uruguay
Round) attempt to quantify the benefits of removing all such trade
barriers estimated the potential welfare gain to developing countries
at about $130 billion a year (at current prices, and covering only the
gains on visible trade)[8] . Another study concluded that even a 50
per cent tariff cut could give developing countries a gain in the
region of $90 billion to $155 billion a year[9] . It is extremely
important that developing countries be given the opportunity to
realise these gains. Although some panel members felt it was crucial
that developed countries first rebuild confidence in the WTO by
delivering on both the spirit as well as the letter of previous
agreements, the Panel as a whole felt the best approach would be to
initiate a new round of multilateral trade negotiations at the
ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) planned for
Qatar in November 2001. This should be truly a Development Round, and
indeed that title has been widely suggested. The industrial countries,
whose leadership will be indispensable in making a new round
successful, will need to accept that the negotiations are centred on
questions of concern to developing countries. They must enter the
negotiations prepared to make substantive concessions on those issues;
many developing countries might find it difficult to start
negotiations without some assurance of such willingness. The Qatar
ministerial meeting should set an objective of making trade as free
between industrial and developing countries as it already is among the
industrial countries.
A Development Round would need to deal with
the following agenda:
· Finishing the business of the Uruguay
Round. This means securing full implementation of the spirit as well
as the letter of the commitments that industrial countries made in
those negotiations. There is also a need to review regulations that
developing countries have found either hard to implement or
unexpectedly onerous.
· Strengthening the rules of the WTO system
. This is of critical importance for developing countries, because it
is the least powerful countries that most need strong rules.
Anti-dumping rules, for example, are being increasingly abused and
need to be disciplined by the international system.
· Liberalising trade in agricultural
products . All analyses indicate that this would benefit developing
countries. Of course, the implications of full liberalisation would be
enormously greater for some products, like sugar, than for others. The
real cost of producing sugar in developing countries is as little as a
third what it is in some EU countries, but developing-country exports
are kept out by an EU tariff of 213 per cent. Agricultural subsidies
in the member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation
and Development (OECD) amounted to $361 billion in 1999, more than the
entire GDP of Sub-Saharan Africa. The aim should be complete
liberalisation of agricultural trade, with at most two qualifications.
First, in the industrial countries, any concern to sustain the real
income of the rural sector should be addressed by subsidies focused on
environmental protection rather than agricultural output. Second, in
developing countries, a continuing concern with food security may
justify variable import tariffs when world prices are low, given that
these countries cannot afford extensive farm subsidies.
· Reducing tariff peaks and tariff
escalation Even after the Multi-Fibre Arrangement has been phased out
under the Uruguay Round agreement, the average tariff on textiles and
clothing in OECD countries will be 8 per cent, compared with 3 per
cent on other manufactures. For many other developing-country exports,
market access is limited by particularly high tariffs or by tariffs
that escalate with the degree of processing. This prevents developing
countries from producing higher-value products and moving up the
development ladder.
· Reforming trade-related intellectual
property rights . This was a topic covered for the first time by the
multilateral trade regime in the Uruguay Round. But many developing
countries have found it impractical to impose and enforce
state-of-the-art intellectual property laws on the model prescribed in
the WTO agreement. Furthermore, some of the results, such as the high
cost of HIV/AIDS medicines and other patented pharmaceutical products
in poor countries, have aroused much anxiety. This whole question
needs to be re-examined, with a view, among other things, to seeking
ways to increase the availability of low-cost medicines without unduly
affecting the incentive to innovate and introduce new products.
· Legitimating limited, time-bound
protection of certain industries by countries in the early stages of
industrialisation . However misguided the old model of blanket
protection intended to nurture import substitute industries, it would
be a mistake to go to the other extreme and deny developing countries
the opportunity of actively nurturing the development of an industrial
sector. A requirement for international approval of such protection
could be a help to the governments of developing countries in
resisting excessive demands from their domestic lobbies (and from
multinationals considering local investment).
· Taking a new look at liberalising
migration . The time may also be ripe to start seeking some measure of
international agreement on ‘the movement of natural persons’,
meaning rules governing short-term overseas employment, which could
provide an even larger source of foreign exchange for developing
countries than in the past.
This list is not intended to suggest that a
new trade round should be limited to these topics. Some Panel members
believe that the gains to all countries could be even greater if a new
round also includes services. Rather, the purpose of the list is to
identify those topics that must not be omitted if developing countries
are to be fully included in the world trading system on an equitable
basis.
One issue that has impeded agreement on the
launch of a new round is the use of trade sanctions to promote labour
or environmental standards. These topics are best dealt with by
developing the international institutions specifically focused on
labour and the environment, as discussed in section 5.
In recent years trade liberalisation has
often occurred on a regional rather than a global basis. Regional
agreements can be a constructive way of advancing more liberal trade
and are often of special importance for small countries, but it is
important to make them building blocks of, and not stumbling blocks
to, a global free trade system. Such agreements should be fully WTO-consistent,
and their pursuit should not become an excuse for delaying
multilateral liberalisation.
Trade rounds take a long time to reach
fruition. The problems of the least developed countries cannot wait
that long. Some initiatives have already been taken to strengthen
their trading position. The WTO, the World Bank, the International
Monetary Fund (IMF), UNCTAD, the United Nations Development Programme,
and the UNCTAD- and WTO-sponsored International Trade Centre have
jointly launched an ‘Integrated Framework’ designed to build up
the capacity of the least developed countries for trade negotiation
and to assist their export diversification. The extent to which
countries are able to take advantage of improvements in market access
obviously depends on a range of supply-side factors, many of which are
covered by the discussion of domestic policies in the previous
section. In the case of many least developed countries, these problems
are so acute that it is right for the international community to give
some immediate help in capacity building. The Trust Fund that has been
established to support the Integrated Framework will do just that. It
deserves generous financing.
The WTO has also tried to shame the
industrial countries into improving market access for the least
developed countries. New Zealand and Norway have already opened their
markets completely. The United States has responded with its special
programmes for Africa and the Caribbean, which have received
congressional approval and are now being implemented, although
unfortunately with limitations that are liable to curtail their value.
The European Commission proposed that the European Union phase out all
quota and tariff restrictions on imports of everything but arms from
the least developed countries over 2002 to 2004. That proposal was
approved in the Council of Ministers in February 2001, although with
regrettable delay in giving unrestricted market access in bananas,
rice, and sugar. It is important to secure faithful and prompt
implementation of this commitment and to obtain actions at least as
good from all other industrial countries. An immediate and useful step
would be to implement without further delay all Uruguay Round
concessions affecting the least developed countries, provided, of
course, that such concessions not be allowed to substitute for overall
liberalisation.
Many of the poorest countries still remain
overwhelmingly dependent on primary commodities for their export
revenue. In fact, more than 50 developing countries, including about
two-thirds of the HIPCs, depend on three or fewer commodities for more
than half their export earnings. This exposes them to two problems.
One is that over the long run the prices of these goods have tended to
fall in real terms, making it increasingly difficult for producers in
these countries to earn a decent living and for the countries to buy
the imports they need to grow. The other is that both the producers
and their countries are buffeted by strong cyclical pressures, because
commodity prices often vary sharply with the state of global demand.
It is difficult to imagine how the first
problem could be resolved by direct intervention to support prices.
International commodity agreements have occasionally managed to hold
up prices for a few years. But such success has invariably attracted
additional producers and dampened demand until the agreement finally
collapsed, leading to adjustments even sharper and more painful than
would have been experienced in a free market. At the root of the
problem is that, under current circumstances, any rise in commodity
prices spurs a rush of new entrants hoping to scratch out a living by
supplying the world market, even if at a starvation wage. The problem
will be overcome only when development has proceeded far enough to
make such desperate behaviour unnecessary.
There is also a long history of attempts to
reduce the cyclical variability of commodity prices, or at least to
reduce its impact. Although some modest initiatives, such as the
IMF’s Compensatory Financing Facility, have been useful at the
margin, none of the grand proposals floated, from Keynes onward, has
ever secured agreement. Even commodity agreements that did not aim to
hold prices permanently above their market-clearing levels have
eventually collapsed. It is regrettable that the Compensatory
Financing Facility was scaled back in the 1980s. It deserves to be
restored and improved.
One interesting new approach for making a
limited assault on the problem is a scheme for commodity risk
management in developing countries[10] . This new initiative differs
from its predecessors in two key respects. First, it makes no attempt
to stabilise market prices, but rather focuses on the price received
by the individual producer. Second, although it envisages the creation
of a new intermediary within some international organisation to
operate the scheme, this intermediary would reinsure its contracts
with private sector insurers, so that the terms it offered would be
essentially those being quoted by the private sector. The job of the
intermediary would be to make these terms widely available to poor
farmers and other producers in developing countries who now lack
access to private insurance.
The proposed intermediary would sell
insurance to producers on the prices of at least the 12 principal
commodities exported by developing countries. Aid resources could be
used to pay a part of the premium costs of poor producers, provided
the eligibility criteria are unambiguous; producers with incomes above
that threshold would be required to cover the costs. Since the
intermediary would quote premium rates based on going rates in the
commercial markets with which it would reinsure most of its risk, it
would be largely risk-free.
How useful would such a mechanism be? It is
important to be clear that it would not claim to stabilise prices
received by producers, but rather to give them advance assurance of
the minimum price that they will receive. This would be of special
value to farmers with a choice of annual crops. They would be better
able to decide which crop to sow if they knew, at planting time, the
minimum price they would eventually receive for each alternative crop.
The scheme would only stabilise the incomes of other producers (such
as those harvesting coffee and other tree crops) to the extent that
they would make claims on their insurance when times are bad and not
when they are good. As world market prices fluctuate, so would the
guaranteed minimum price that could be bought for a given insurance
premium. Although the potential benefits of such a scheme are fairly
modest, it would be worth initiating one promptly, at least on a trial
basis.
In contrast to the many initiatives over the
years to liberalise trade, and more recently to free capital
movements, there has never been any comparable initiative to free the
movement of persons between countries. In the light of demographic
developments in the industrial countries (in particular, the ageing of
their populations) and the potential benefits of migration in
generating remittances to developing countries, the time has come to
put this issue on the international agenda.
The increased trading opportunities called
for in this section would create the chance for many more developing
countries to enter the virtuous circle of export-led growth. These
better market opportunities would need to be supplemented by strong
support for capacity building and efforts to limit the havoc wrought
by weak commodity prices. Only then will trade fulfil its potential in
helping the poorest countries achieve the International Development
Goals."
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United Nations, 09/17/01
"
International trade as an engine for growth and development
18. Trade liberalization would substantially
contribute to achieve development worldwide, benefiting both developed
and developing countries. Yet, trade barriers and subsidies in
developed countries currently impose costs on developing countries
that significantly exceed aid flows. Those barriers and subsidies must
be eliminated. We recognize the need to ensure an open, equitable,
rule-based, predictable, and non-discriminatory multilateral trading
system, that decisively benefits all developing countries and
countries with economies in transition, including low-income
countries, SIDs, and landlocked developing countries.
19. The lifting of trade barriers should not
be followed by the introduction of new ones –even if these are
motivated by commendable objectives. Labor and environmental concerns
need to be properly addressed, but should be pursued as separate
goals, through the appropriate institutions and fora, so that efforts
to achieve trade liberalization and improved labor and environmental
standards can be mutually reinforcing.
20. We commit ourselves to deepen all efforts
made thus far to ensure that world trade supports development goals,
including by securing full implementation of all commitments made by
industrialized countries at the Uruguay Round, and by multilateral
trade negotiations geared to:
Strengthening the rules and disciplines of
the World Trade Organization, to prevent abuses to the detriment of
developing countries, such as abusive antidumping measures or
technical standards against their exports. Liberalizing trade in
agricultural products, fully eliminating output and export subsidies
in developed countries Reducing tariff peaks which affect developing
countries exports, and eliminating tariff escalation which discourages
developing countries from exporting higher value added products.
Eliminating the trade barriers of developed countries in manufactures,
particularly labor-intensive manufactures such as textiles and
clothing. Revisiting the issue of trade-related intellectual property
rights, with a view to promoting the widest availability of knowledge
for development without unduly affecting incentives to innovate,
taking care –in particular- of the health imperatives of developing
countries.
21. Regional and sub-regional cooperation and
integration processes can play a key role in fostering global trade
and development, by improving competitiveness and export
diversification. We also commit ourselves to enhancing the role of
regional and sub-regional agreements and free trade areas as building
blocks in the construction of a better global trading system.
22. To speed up our efforts to ensure full
access of developing country exports to all markets—with no
exception but arms—, we call on all industrialized countries that
have not already done so, to take immediate steps in benefit of the
LDCs, as well as in support of the New African Initiative and the
development efforts of all other low-income countries, SIDs, and
landlocked developing countries.
23. We also call on the multilateral
financial and development institutions to devise ways and means to
stabilize the export revenue of developing countries that still depend
heavily on commodity exports, in particular low income countries, SIDS
and landlocked developing countries, including by restoring and
improving the IMF compensatory financing facility scheme, establishing
appropriate multilateral commodity risk management mechanisms, and
ensuring access to insurance against natural catastrophes.
24. We further call on multilateral and
bilateral financial and development institutions to deepen their
support, with additional resources, of efforts by developing
countries, including low-income countries, SIDs, and landlocked
developing countries, to remove supply-side constraints, improve their
trade infrastructure, diversify export capacity, and enhance their
participation in multilateral trade negotiations, trade opportunities,
and the dispute settlement mechanism."
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United Nations,12/06/01
"International trade as an engine for
development
23. Freer trade would substantially stimulate
development worldwide, benefiting both industrial and developing
countries. The current slowdown in the world economy urges us to
reaffirm our commitment towards trade liberalization, and ensuring
that trade plays its full part in promoting recovery, growth and
development. We thus welcome the WTO’s decision reached in Doha to
launch a new round of trade negotiations and the intent to place the
needs and interests of developing countries at the heart of the WTO
work program.
24. To benefit fully from trade, which in
many cases is the single most important source of development
financing, developing and transition countries must establish
appropriate institutions and policies. Trade liberalization is a
fundamental element in the development strategy of a country. The
active promotion of exports and the attraction of foreign direct
investment boost economic growth and are an important source of
employment.
25. Nations will only attain full benefits
from such reforms if we ensure an open, equitable, rule-based,
predictable, and non-discriminatory multilateral trading system. Trade
barriers, subsidies, and other trade-distorting measures, particularly
in agriculture, have negative effects on developing countries that
significantly exceed the value of aid flows—and must be eliminated.
26. To ensure that world trade supports
development goals, we will strive to:
§ Strengthen the rules and disciplines of
the World Trade Organization, to prevent abuses, particularly in
antidumping measures; secure full implementation of all commitments
made at the Uruguay Round; and facilitate, in non-discriminatory
terms, the accession of all developing and transition countries to the
WTO.
§ Liberalize trade in agricultural products,
eliminating export subsidies and substantially reducing production
subsidies in developed countries; accelerate the elimination of trade
barriers of developed countries in manufactures, particularly labor-intensive
manufactures such as textiles and clothing; liberalize trade in
services of export interest to developing countries; address the issue
of labor migration through rules governing short-term overseas
employment; and reduce tariff peaks, eliminate tariff escalation, and
make fully operational the special and differential treatment
provisions in trade agreements.
§ Regarding trade-related intellectual
property rights, ensure recognition of traditional knowledge and
promote the transfer of knowledge and technology, while providing
incentives to innovate, and respecting—in particular—the health
needs of developing countries.
We encourage the WTO member countries to make
their best efforts to achieve these goals as they implement the WTO
work program adopted at Doha.
27. We also commit ourselves to enhancing the
role of regional and sub-regional agreements and free trade areas in
the construction of a better global trading system. International
financial institutions, including the regional development banks,
should give priority to projects that support sub-regional and
regional integration among developing countries.
28. To speed up our efforts to ensure full
and predictable access of developing country exports to all markets,
we call on industrial countries that have not already done so, to take
immediate steps to benefit the least developed countries, as well as
to support the New Partnership for African Development, and the small
island, landlocked, and transit developing countries. At the same
time, developing and transition countries must reduce, and when
possible eliminate, trade barriers among themselves.
29. To further support national efforts to
benefit from trade opportunities, we call on multilateral and
bilateral financial and development institutions to deepen their
support, with additional resources, for removing supply-side
constraints, improving trade infrastructure, diversifying export
capacity, strengthening institutional development, and enhancing
overall productivity and competitiveness.
30. Multilateral help is also needed to
stabilize the export revenue of countries that still depend heavily on
commodity exports. Thus, we welcome the review and impending
activation of the IMF Compensatory Financing Facility. It is also
important to empower developing country commodity producers to insure
themselves against risk, including against natural disasters.
31. In support of the process launched in
Doha, attention should go to strengthening the participation of
developing countries in multilateral trade negotiations. In
particular, developing countries need assistance to participate
effectively in the new WTO work program through enhanced cooperation
of all relevant stakeholders, including UNCTAD. To these ends, we
undertake to make the financing of trade-related technical assistance
and capacity building more secure and predictable."
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FfD Trade
