Negotiations can find compromise on the safeguards issue — Lamy

Collective efforts towards a shared future

With the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals in 2000, the world saw an unprecedented collective effort to pursue a shared future. It was a joint effort where North and South, East and West rich and poor collectively agreed to team up, to pool resources to attain a set of shared objectives.
Objective number eight, which Pradeep Mehta said is the leitmotiv of this conference, calls for developing a partnership for development and this where the title of this conference comes from.

The starting points are simple: we live in an interdependent world where go-it-alone policies and actions are not enough to achieve collective results; nor are they any longer sufficient to even achieve country-specific goals. As I said yesterday today's global challenges can no longer be met by individual action. Collective action is needed. And this collective action needs to be and to be felt as legitimate, ie all actors need to participate in its design in order to feel ownership.

This is the underlying philosophy of the WTO. It exists to serve all of its 153 Members, no matter how diverse their economies are or how well equipped they may be to take advantage of the trading system. The differences in levels of economic development are recognized in the WTO and are a part of its reality. No one contests that developing countries, and especially the least-developed countries, require greater flexibilities if trade and development objectives are to be met.

Hence developing countries have come to rely on the WTO as one which provides them with an effective set of rules which ensure that trade facilitates development, and provides them with a forum for discussing and negotiating their trade related concerns.

As the trade of developing countries gains in importance, it is necessary for the institutional aspects of the WTO to keep step. Developing countries must be assured that their efforts to expand and diversify their markets are backed by an organization which will protect their current and future interests.

While developed countries, and especially the markets of the United States and the European Union, still provide the lion's share of market opportunities for developing country exports, this situation is changing. South-South trade has grown faster than North-South trade over recent years. It has become increasingly evident that one developing country's trade policies can create opportunities for more trade with other partners. Much of the expansion in South-South trade has taken place in Asian developing countries, which are estimated to account for more than two-thirds of all intra-developing country trade.

So some developing countries have benefitted greatly from international trade. Unfortunately, there are many developing countries that have yet to reap real gains from trade. This is a concern of mine, and indeed is a concern of the WTO membership. This is why we continue to work in the WTO to help all developing countries enjoy the benefits of participation in international trade. Before I talk about current developmental issues in the WTO agreements, let me briefly turn back in history and outline how the multilateral trading system has evolved to take into account developing country issues.

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Source: WTO News