Lamy calls for coordinated policy action

The World Trade Organization (WTO) today called for coordinated policy initiatives from the key trading countries in order to conclude the Doha Round of global trade talks that would liberalise global commerce and help countries trade freely.

Director General Pascal Lamy also said sluggish and ‘potholed’ growth coupled with a high rate of unemployment have induced some countries to shun global strategies and instead embrace protectionism to save their domestic industries.

“For a sustainable global recovery, there is a need for a coordinated policy action across countries, which would lead to a progressive reduction of these global imbalances and to a greater number of jobs,” Lamy said in his address to Ficci here.

He also said in a world that has just emerged from one of the worst economic crises of recent times, various economic imbalances would exist but that addressing these concerns through trade restrictive measures would not yield any positive results, on the contrary, “it will trigger tit-for-tat protectionism”.

Lamy, who is on a three-day visit to India, also met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma late evening today. He even lauded their efforts to resurrect the negotiations that reached a hiatus in 2008.

Referring the recently concluded G-20 summit in Seoul, Lamy said it had rightly prioritised issues of the developing and low-income countries as its main agenda but a lot needed to be done. “Leaders recognised the 2011 window of opportunity to achieve this goal. They called for intensified engagement and negotiations across the board to conclude the endgame,” he said, adding that now it was up to all the 153 WTO members to translate this into action and called for intensified negotiations.

He also warned that if the Doha Development Round failed, the only institution that governs the rule of global trade and commerce would weaken and give rise to several trade disputes for which countries would have nowhere to go to.

According to Commerce Secretary Rahul Khullar, emphasis made by the G-20 leaders needs to be taken seriously in order to have a rule-based multilateral trading system. “Two years have gone by and very little progress has been made … It is running out of steam.”

The Doha Round of negotiations started exactly nine years ago this month in Qatar to have a multilateral global trade deal which would help poorer countries export more of their products while developed countries would get more access in the markets of developing countries for their industrial products. However, it has missed several deadlines since then to finish the negotiations and sign the deal.

The last round of talks between the key countries like the US, EU members, Australia, South Africa, China, India and Brazil were held in November 2009. However, it failed to reach any conclusion as countries were facing tough financial situation due to the global economic crisis.