WASHINGTON, 4 September 2003 — World powers must jump-start stalled global trade talks in Mexico this month to forge a fairer system and lift 144 million people out of poverty, the World Bank said yesterday. A pro-poor World Trade Organization deal could deliver a $291-billion annual boost to the global economy by 2015, of which $159 billion would go to the developing world, the Bank said.
That bonanza could lower the predicted number of people living on less than two dollars a day in 2015 by 144 million people, said the World Bank’s annual Global Economic Prospects report. But the negotiations, to be taken up by trade ministers in Cancun, Mexico, from Sept. 10 to 14, have ground to a virtual halt as disputes rage in key areas including cutting subsidies for farmers.
“The talks are approaching a critical juncture,” said World Bank trade department director Uri Dadush. “If ministers can reach an agreement to reduce trade barriers affecting the products that poor people produce — especially farm products and labor-intensive manufactures, it would help raise their standard of living,” he said. “If not, an opportunity will be lost.” The World Bank chided rich countries for allowing inequities to fester in the trading system, especially in agriculture.
Meanwhile, Philippine President Gloria Arroyo urged rich nations yesterday to help ensure the success of the WTO talks by refraining from using “clever tricks” such as quotas and farm subsidies. Arroyo and Malaysia’s Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, addressing a regional business forum in Bandar Seri Begawan, indicated that developing nations cannot blindly open up their markets because national interests are at stake and the effects of globalization are not all positive.
East Asia’s aggressive efforts to forge regional and bilateral trade arrangements while supporting the multilateral regime under the WTO was a hotly-debated topic during the two-day meeting of the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC) in Brunei’s capital. There are concerns that such regional accords would undermine efforts to cobble common rules governing world trade under the WTO umbrella. Some speakers criticized the region’s leaders for allegedly failing to defend the multilateral trade process.
In Kuala Lumpur, South African President Thabo Mbeki urged developing countries to unite to protect their interests at the WTO meeting. “What we have to do is to ensure that we, as developing countries speak with one voice,” Mbeki told a forum organized by the Institute of Strategic and International Studies.
Brazil, China, India and 17 developing or emerging countries, known collectively as the G-20, are to meet on the eve of an upcoming WTO summit, the grouping said in a statement in Geneva yesterday. At the meeting, the 20 countries “will coordinate their positions with a view to the agricultural negotiations”, the statement said.