Director-General Pascal Lamy, in remarks at the United Kingdom's Department for International Development on 22 January 2009, said that the WTO will soon issue periodic reports on global trade trends to facilitate members' discussions on coping with the economic crisis, and would be organizing further meetings on trade finance.
Some the highlights from Mr Lamy's speech:
“There is no doubt that this crisis will have profound and possibly prolonged effects on developing countries, the least developed among them in particular, whose recent good economic performance has been largely driven by external factors. The reality is that their chief exports — oil, minerals, agricultural commodities, textiles and clothing as well as tourism — are already experiencing substantial reductions as global demand shrinks. Add to this the fact that the crisis is also impacting negatively on external sources of funds, such as foreign direct investment or remittances which greatly contribute to these economies and you have a recipe for a potentially explosive economic and social situation.”
“This week the EU Commission issued its extended interim forecast on economic growth. The forecast is gloomy as we all had expected but the magnitude of the forecast is bigger than most of us would have expected. The report states that growth fell by 1 per cent in 2008 and will fall by less than 2 per cent in 2009. This deteriorating outlook is likely to have a ripple effect that will further undermine growth prospects of a majority of developing countries who depend on the EU for their export market.”
”We have also recently seen world forecasts of a sharp decline in global remittances that workers send home to developing countries and this will also have a devastating impact, particularly on small Sub-Saharan countries like Senegal and Ghana where remittances are a key source of finance. Furthermore, I was in Cambodia at the end of November last year and we were informed then that 60 per cent of textiles and clothing companies in that country do not have orders beyond February 2009 as a result of the slowdown in demand in the US market. This is an industry that currently employs around 300,000 workers. The news from Southern Africa is equally disturbing. We are told that in December, exports from the textiles and clothing sector to the US market were 30 per cent down from the previous month and are expected to fall further.”
”Today it is clear that trade is one of the casualties of this economic crisis and that we run the risk that one of the engines of growth — in fact, one that is very important for many developing countries — stalls. With this worsening global economic situation in mind, the key question we have asked ourselves is how can we ensure that trade or rather lack of trade does not further exacerbate the negative impact of the economic crisis. And what can the WTO contribute towards mitigating the impact of this crisis, particularly on developing countries?”
”First and foremost, the reality is that the multilateral trading system is an insurance policy against protectionism. By investing further in this system, by strengthening it and increasing its robustness, the international community will be investing in an insurance policy against the deterioration of market conditions, such as protectionism. We all know that when the world decides to turn itself towards protectionism, the most vulnerable will suffer the most. It is therefore safe to conclude that the WTO insurance policy is even more indispensable for the poor at this juncture.”
”Starting from this week, we will be issuing periodic reports on global trends in international trade and trade policy developments as part of our surveillance mandate. These reports will be factual and we hope will facilitate discussions among members on how to better cope with this crisis.”
”Another important issue we are actively following because of its potential adverse impact on developing countries is the availability and affordability of import and export finance. In November, I convened a meeting of representatives of private banks, international financial institutions and export credit agencies which confirmed that the market for trade finance has severely deteriorated over the last six or so months, particularly since September. The shortage of liquidity to finance trade credits and the general reassessment of risks caused as much by the financial crisis as by the global economic slowdown were identified as among the two key causes of this deterioration. We have already begun to see the results of this engagement on trade finance. Recently, the World Bank announced a tripling of the ceiling, to US$3 billion, of the trade finance guarantees available under the IFC's trade finance facilitation programme. A second meeting is scheduled in March at the WTO to take stock of the situation since we last met and to consider additional responses.”
.
Network Tweets
Network BlogsContent
provided by
|
Archive | Resources | Partners | Site Map | Links | Newsletter Archive | Contact | RSS Feeds | About | Syndication | Advertising & Marketing | Recruitment | Terms & Conditions | Privacy & Cookies
Copyright © 2012 - All Rights Reserved - Tax-News.com
IMPORTANT NOTICE: Tax-News.com has taken reasonable care in sourcing and presenting the information contained on this site, but accepts no responsibility for any financial or other loss or damage that may result from its use. In particular, users of the site are advised to take appropriate professional advice before committing themselves to involvement in offshore jurisdictions, offshore trusts or offshore investments.
Write a comment