Archives

BANGALORE, India, Friday (AFP) The success of global trade liberalisation talks is at "serious" risk unless rich countries dismantle trade barriers and grant market access to developing nations, a World Bank official warned.

"The leadership now has to be with the rich countries," said Nicholas Stern, chief economist of the World Bank, adding that rich nations had barriers in agriculture, textiles and manufacturing.

"They have barriers precisely in place where developing countries have a comparative advantage. Unless you see some serious movement on agriculture there will not be any progress of any serious kind," Stern told researchers and officials at a conference here.

The World Trade Organisation (WTO) launched the Doha round of liberalisation talks in November 2001 with a three-year deadline for their completion but negotiators are still struggling to reach agreement on reducing trade barriers for poorer countries. WTO members have already missed several intermediate deadlines, most recently a key step in talks on liberalising agricultural markets by the end of March.

"The expansion of market access in agriculture is of fundamental importance in the coming weeks ... and if we do not do it then, the Doha round is under serious risk," Stern said on the second day of the Bank's Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics.

"I think it is important we speak up and ask rich countries to move forward very strongly on that in the coming weeks. The agricultural policies of rich countries are financing the costs of not changing," he said.

Rich nations, Stern added, should ease trade restrictions, increase aid to countries engaged in fundamental reforms and support enhanced capital flows to developing countries.

The wealthier nations who wrote the rules of the current trading system and continue to dominate global trade have a special role to play, he said.

"It is within our collective power to achieve the Millennium Development Goals if the international community has the will," Stern said.

These goals include reducing the share of people in absolute poverty to half of the 1990 level by 2015 together with large improvements in education, child and maternal health, gender equality and protection of the environment.

The international community committed to the goals at the UN Millennium Summit in New York in September 2000 and has since reaffirmed the pledge several times - most recently at a summit in Johannesburg in September 2002.

The World Bank estimates that global trade liberalisation, including a reduction in trade barriers in both rich and developing countries, could make significant contribution to achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

It said the easing of barriers could result in lifting at least 300 million people out of poverty by 2015 but warned that international aid would need to double to about 100 billion dollars a year to meet the objectives.

"It is difficult to imagine something that would give a greater boost to a fragile economy," Stern said. "The actions that rich countries take in the weeks ahead will help to determine how developing countries respond."

The next WTO ministerial meeting is slated for September in Cancun in Mexico. "Visible movement on agriculture and on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights and on medicine will also be need to move the agenda forward. A great responsibility for success lies with the rich country leaders," Stern said.

News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security
Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries |

Produced by Lake House
Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Comments and suggestions to :Web Manager