ICC Chairman Marcus Wallenberg met with the Swedish Minister of Trade, Sten Tolgfors last week.

In the meeting which took place at the minister’s office in Stockholm, Mr Wallenberg underscored the need to revive the Doha trade round talks. He briefed Mr Tolgfors on the origins of ICC as a herald for multilateral trade liberalization and expressed ICC’s belief that the negotiations were quintessential to generating economic growth, creating jobs and raising living standards across the globe.

“The benefits of across the board liberalization of trade in goods and services must be the first priority for governments and business,” Mr Wallenberg said. “Bilateral agreements could never parallel a global solution.”

Mr Wallenberg illustrated this conviction by giving examples of a medium-sized company with suppliers and customers in multiple countries struggling to cope with a web of incompatible regimes in origin rules.

Mr Tolgfors – who recently had an opinion editorial on  his commitment to the Doha round published in the Swedish newspaper Dagens Industri – assured Mr Wallenberg that the success of the WTO negotiations was of paramount importance to the Swedish government in the area of trade.

The minister was assisted by Anders Ahnlid, Deputy Under Secretary for International Trade and Jakob Kiefer, the minister's Political Advisor.