Atabey previously said:

Pascal Lamy, head of World Trade Organisation, reveals fall in trade flows as he urges members to revive Doha trade talks


Heather Stewart
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 24 February 2010 18.15 GMT
Article history

Pascal Lamy, Director general of the World Trade Organization (WTO) before the opening of its council in Geneva, November 17, 2009. Photograph: DENIS BALIBOUSE/REUTERS

Global trade flows contracted by a catastrophic 12% in 2009, the fastest pace since the second world war, Pascal Lamy, director general of the World Trade Organisation revealed today, as he urged its 153 member countries to breathe new life into the ailing Doha trade round.

This latest estimate is considerably worse than the WTO's previous forecast of a 10% decline for last year, underlining the hefty costs of the financial crisis for the world economy.

Lamy said there were early signs that trade was now recovering, but it was not yet clear whether the upturn would last. "Certainly there is a pick-up. Whether this pick-up is short term ... or whether this is sustainable ... is difficult to say but we certainly are picking up."

In the early phases of the credit crunch in 2008, there was hope that the worst of its effects would be confined to the US and other major economies, with emerging markets such as China and India escaping unscathed.

But after confidence collapsed in the wake of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in late 2008, policymakers throughout the world watched in horror as demand plunged in every market.

Bank of England governor Mervyn King subsequently described how one company after another in the UK reported that demand had "fallen off a cliff".

"The main explanation for this freefall in trade has been the simultaneous reduction in aggregate demand across all major world economies," Lamy told a conference in Brussels.

Completing the Doha round, which has already lasted more than eight years, could help to open up new sources of revenue for recession-hit countries, and kick-start a world recovery, he said.

The Doha round was launched in the aftermath of the 11 September attacks on the United States, and was aimed at making world markets fairer for poor countries. But there has been little progress since talks collapsed acrimoniously in Geneva in July 2008.

President Obama, who took a stand against the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs during his campaign for the White House, has shown little enthusiasm for completing a new multilateral round of talks, and any deal would have to be approved by Congress.

Lamy recently decided that there was little point in calling trade ministers together for a planned meeting next month, as too little progress had been made in negotiations. The talks broke down when India and the US failed to agree about how much protection could be afforded to subsistence farmers, against surging imports of cut-price goods from richer producers.

However, Lamy insisted that with the impact of taxpayer-funded anti-recession policies around the world now fading away, there was an "economic imperative" to restart negotiations.

"The key point is that trade can have a positive impact on incomes or output and job creation during this economic downturn," he said. "If there was a geopolitical sense in launching the Doha development round in 2001, another year when the world was put to the test, it is today economically imperative to conclude it."


There have been growing concerns in recent months that with export powerhouse China seizing an ever-increasing share of world trade, there could be a protectionist backlash from the US, where a strong lobby in Congress has long accused Beijing of "manipulating" its exchange rate. Lamy said so far there was little evidence of rising protectionism, but completing the Doha round would reaffirm the world's commitment to free trade.

abc200 previously said:

Trade has a negative impact on job creation - it destroys jobs.

S.

dreadlocks previously said:

anthonyc, he is not absolutely wrong. problem is, he is not absolutely right, either.

anthonyC previously said:


Are you kidding?

Trade creates jobs.

No trade = No Jobs.

abc200 previously said:


aC is stupid. When the US had an increase in imported cars it insisted that the foreign manufacturers set up plants in the US. Reagan your hero convinced the Japanese to voluntary restraint in car exports to the US.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/japan/scohenwp.htm
Why to save jobs.

Millions of farmers in Mexico have lost their jobs due to imports of US corn, ditto millions of Haitians have lost farming jobs due to imports of Miami rice.

So is it time aC for your education....
S.

greenpeace2 previously said:


Millions of Mexican farmers have jobs in the USA and free health care!

abc200 previously said:


Not real health care - only emergency treatment..........
They are cheaper than US workers who now do not have jobs......
S.

abc200 previously said:


aC is stupid. When the US had an increase in imported cars it insisted that the foreign manufacturers set up plants in the US. Reagan your hero convinced the Japanese to voluntary restraint in car exports to the US.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/japan/scohenwp.htm
Why to save jobs.

Millions of farmers in Mexico have lost their jobs due to imports of US corn, ditto millions of Haitians have lost farming jobs due to imports of Miami rice.

So is it time aC for your education....
S.