Business wants new trade negotiations
 |
| Mike Moore: the WTO Director-General is pressing for a new trade round |
Paris, 14 June 2001 - The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) today called for early agreement on new broad-based multilateral trade negotiations and said this would boost business, investor and consumer confidence at a time of growing economic uncertainty in the world.
The w
orld business organization, representing the private sector in more than 140 countries, said the coming ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization in Qatar in November was a valuable opportunity to get negotiations started. Ministers should aim for an agenda capable of producing results "within a relatively short period."
ICC national committees in the capitals of WTO member countries are handing the statement directly to their governments. It was timed to exert maximum business pressure ahead of the WTO's self-imposed deadline of the end of July for securing agreement on new negotiations.
The statement described the rules-based multilateral trading system as "one of the central pillars on international cooperation", and said regional and plurilateral trading arrangements were no substitute.
"It is in the urgent interest of all WTO member countries to work closely together to reaffirm in concrete form the key role of the WTO multilateral system in the management of globalization and in enabling its benefits to spread throughout society in all parts of the world."
ICC said early agreement to launch negotiations - irrespective of whether they were labelled as a new trade round - would reassure business about government intentions and lead to additional business opportunities for international suppliers of goods and services.
Agreement would "send a confidence-boosting signal to investors, traders and consumers that, at a time of growing uncertainty in the face of a pronounced slowdown in the global economy, governments from all continents are able to work together, not only to resist protectionist pressures, but to enlarge the potential for increasing trade and investment links between nations."
A positive decision would also "reverse the impression given by governments in recent times that their focus has shifted to creating bilateral, plurilateral and regional trading arrangements at the expense of efforts to further liberalize multilateral trade through a global institution, the WTO."
Noting that a start had already been made in Geneva with negotiations in services and agriculture, ICC said there should be agreement in Qatar to expand this agenda to cover "a broader range of trade policy issues". This would improve the prospects of achieving a balanced result to which all WTO members could subscribe, the ICC statement said.
New negotiations should give priority to the concerns of the developing countries, and especially those arising out of implementation of the agreements reached in the previous Uruguay Round of trade negotiations. The ICC statement pointed out that developing countries now account for three-quarters of WTO membership and carry substantial weight in the organization.
"They have to feel strongly confident of making dependable gains in access to developed country markets, and especially for products in which they have a competitive advantage."
While new WTO negotiations should extend effective market access on a mutually-beneficial reciprocal basis, it had to be recognized that many developing countries will require special transition periods and technical assistance to enable them to fulfil their commitments, ICC said.
For further information contact: Lionel Walsh, Communications Department, International Chamber of Commerce, Tel: +33 (1) 49 53 28 23; fax: +33 (1) 49 53 29 2
4.
Full text of the ICC statement