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Trade agreement should not put strain on natural: Sinha
Abuja, Dec 04: External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha said it was imperative that a fair, equitable, rule-based multilateral system is created which is responsive to the needs of developing countries and trade agreements are driven by the need to ensure sustainable development.
Abuja, Dec 04: External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha
said it was imperative that a fair, equitable, rule-based
multilateral system is created which is responsive to the needs of
developing countries and trade agreements are driven by the need to
ensure sustainable development.
Addressing the commonwealth business council which is discussing
sustainable development ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of
Government Meet here, Sinha said international trade can lead
to sustainable development only if human development is put at the
centre of the existing multilateral trade regime. ''A human
development oriented trade regime would give governments the space
to design policies that embody these principles. Such a regime would
also help developing countries build their capacity to gain from
trade'', he added.
Pointing out that imports by developing countries increased almost twenty-fold between 1973 and 2001, Sinha said these figures did not reveal that the ''benefits derived by the developing countries from this process in terms of greater economic growth and development had not been commensurate with the onerous obligations that they have been made to assume''.
Free and fair trade is a far more effective tool for poverty eradication and economic development than foreign aid and a recent world bank estimate had shown that a truly liberalised international trading regime will take around 150 million people in various parts of the developing world out of poverty by 2015, he said. Free trade also encouraged productivity and created jobs and acted as a stimulant to institutional reforms that encouraged development, also acting as a conduit for new ideas and innovations on a global scale.
He said protectionist tendencies by developed countries were ''bad for everyone, as they will only impede global growth''. He said it was estimated that one job lost in the developed countries due to trade flows from developing countries created 35 new jobs in the developing economies accessing the benefits of such increased trade. Sustained levels of growth through trade in developing economies will create new demand for goods and services that will benefit rich developed economies, thus making trade and sustainable growth a virtuous circle''.
Sinha said it was important to realise that developing countries were ''not free riders of the multilateral trading system as they had significantly contributed to expansion of international trade. In 1973, at the start of the Tokyo round, developing countries accounted for 18 per cent of the world trade and this figure had gone up to 22 per cent by 1986 and to 30 per cent in 2001 at the start of the Doha round''.
The concept of sustainability must transcend the limited horizon of environmental or ecological dimensions and encompass development in a much wider perspective, and the goals of liberalisation and privatisation were incomplete without specific initiatives to ensure that the entire society benefited from them.
He said the World Trade Organisation was unique in combining a set of binding rules with a powerful mechanism for dispute settlement and the possibility of imposing economic sanctions to enforce compliance.
Bureau Report
Pointing out that imports by developing countries increased almost twenty-fold between 1973 and 2001, Sinha said these figures did not reveal that the ''benefits derived by the developing countries from this process in terms of greater economic growth and development had not been commensurate with the onerous obligations that they have been made to assume''.
Free and fair trade is a far more effective tool for poverty eradication and economic development than foreign aid and a recent world bank estimate had shown that a truly liberalised international trading regime will take around 150 million people in various parts of the developing world out of poverty by 2015, he said. Free trade also encouraged productivity and created jobs and acted as a stimulant to institutional reforms that encouraged development, also acting as a conduit for new ideas and innovations on a global scale.
He said protectionist tendencies by developed countries were ''bad for everyone, as they will only impede global growth''. He said it was estimated that one job lost in the developed countries due to trade flows from developing countries created 35 new jobs in the developing economies accessing the benefits of such increased trade. Sustained levels of growth through trade in developing economies will create new demand for goods and services that will benefit rich developed economies, thus making trade and sustainable growth a virtuous circle''.
Sinha said it was important to realise that developing countries were ''not free riders of the multilateral trading system as they had significantly contributed to expansion of international trade. In 1973, at the start of the Tokyo round, developing countries accounted for 18 per cent of the world trade and this figure had gone up to 22 per cent by 1986 and to 30 per cent in 2001 at the start of the Doha round''.
The concept of sustainability must transcend the limited horizon of environmental or ecological dimensions and encompass development in a much wider perspective, and the goals of liberalisation and privatisation were incomplete without specific initiatives to ensure that the entire society benefited from them.
He said the World Trade Organisation was unique in combining a set of binding rules with a powerful mechanism for dispute settlement and the possibility of imposing economic sanctions to enforce compliance.
Bureau Report