ICC Chairman Victor K. Fung and Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva agreed today that increasing world trade is essential to ending the current global recession, and they emphasized that rising protectionist pressures must be resisted.

The two men met in Hong Kong before a dinner with business leaders hosted by Mr Fung in honour of the Thai Prime Minister, who is also the current head of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

“During the past three decades trade has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, especially in Asia,” Mr Fung said following the meeting. “It is therefore essential that we increase the flow of trade.”

The World Trade Organization has estimated that world trade will drop by 9% this year, its biggest decline since World War II. In contrast, trade volume grew 2% percent in 2008.

The ICC Chairman briefed the Prime Minister on his private meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown just before the G20 summit in London last April. He also informed Mr Vejjajiva of ICC’s input into the final G20 communiqué and ICC’s extensive advocacy work on behalf of business to strengthen the multilateral trading system, resist  protectionism and restore trade finance to more normal levels.

Mr Fung also gave the Thai leader a new ICC report on trade finance, which received US$250 billion in support over the next two years from the G20.

“ICC continues to urge official development banks and export credit guarantee agencies to sharply expand their trade finance facilities in these exceptional times,” Mr Fung said.

He added that leaders need to develop more effective ways of governing an interdependent world with an integrated global economy, insisting that better international cooperation is vital to tackle major challenges that transcend national boundaries and that governments are increasingly unable to resolve on their own.

Mr Fung praised Mr Vejjajiva for the role he has taken in promoting international cooperation to meet the challenges of our time.