The report Payoff from the World Trade Agenda 2013,
is the culmination of the Peterson Institute’s recent study of the ICC Business
World Trade Agenda and quantifies the potential benefits from this initiative’s
trade recommendations for creating jobs and driving economic growth.
Speakers highlighted the urgency of heeding the report’s
findings, which show that rescuing parts of on-going Doha trade negotiations
could boost global GDP by US$960 billion. Business must bring this to
the attention of global leaders through the World Trade Organization (WTO) and
G20 channels, ICC Vice-Chairman Harold McGraw III urged.
“We cannot wait for government,” said Mr McGraw, who is Chairman, President and CEO
of McGraw Hill Financial. “I am not here to disparage governments and
leadership, but it’s got to be business that steps up and plays a more
meaningful role.”
The World Trade Agenda was launched by ICC and the Qatar
Chamber of Commerce and Industry in response to calls from WTO members and G20
leaders for fresh approaches from business following a 12-year impasse in multilateral
trade negotiations.
The
initiative has developed five recommendations that could achieve tangible
outcomes by the end of 2013, to harvest gains from the WTO’s Doha Development
Round. These are:
- Conclude a trade facilitation
agreement
- Implement duty-free and
quota-free market access for exports from least-developed countries
- Phase out agricultural export
subsidies
- Renounce food export
restrictions
- Expand trade in IT products and
encourage growth of e-commerce worldwide
Robert Zoellick, former president of the World Bank and
former US Trade Representative, emphasized in his the keynote speech that the
WTO faces structural challenges amid a global economy that is shifting power
towards developing and emerging economies.
“The WTO’s liberalization and market opening agenda has
gotten stuck and it’s gotten stale. So I think today’s report, in a very
practical way, points to specific opportunities to revitalize, to get some
results and rebuild confidence in the WTO as a multilateral trade institution
in the global economy,” Mr Zoellick said.
The report,
written by Gary Hufbauer and Jeffrey Schott, assesses the potential payoffs
from seven agreements from the Doha Round that could be revived and advanced.
Business
recommendations from this event will be delivered to G20 leaders and WTO
ministers ahead of the next G20 Summit in Saint Petersburg and the WTO
Ministerial Conference in Bali later this year.
View the event speakers
Download a copy of the Peterson Report
Download a copy of the ICC Business WorldTrade Agenda’s business priorities