WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy in his speech said that “Continued policy and regulatory reform in favour of services trade will be vital to supporting economic recovery”
14 Oct 2009
Trade in services and global economic recovery, Global Services Summit — Washington
Director-General Pascal Lamy, in a speech to the Global Services Summit on 14 October 2009 in Washington D.C., said: “to speed global economic recovery, we will need to shore up peoples’ faith in an open international trading system. We will need to demonstrate that continued policy and regulatory reform in favour of services trade will be vital to supporting economic recovery. This may be clear to all of you attending this Summit, but you are the “converted”. The challenge is to take this message beyond these walls. Sectors such as transport, telecoms, finance and distribution are after all the backbone of our international trading system. Other sectors such as energy or the environment hold a huge potential, in particular in the fight against climate change.” This is what he said:
It gives me great pleasure to join you for the Global Services Summit on Jobs, Growth and Development. Your gathering could not have come at a more opportune moment.
We are just a year past the catastrophic collapse of Lehman Brothers. Since then we have faced the deepest and most global economic crisis since the 1930s. The effects have been devastating and no economy has been spared. But thankfully, through the concerted action of governments, the worst has been averted.
World economy on the path to recovery but still fragile
But there is no room complacency. While fresh buds of recovery are emerging, the situation is still fragile. World economic growth has slowed abruptly in 2008 and the early part of this year. The contraction in demand led to a slowdown in production, and in international trade. World merchandise trade is projected to fall by a full 10 per cent this year, its worst result since the end of the Second World War. Foreign direct investment, which fell by 15 per cent in 2008, is projected to drop further.
The WTO responded quickly to the financial crisis by cautioning against isolationist policies. One of my first initiatives, in the aftermath of the crisis, was to establish a monitoring mechanism — a type of WTO “radar screen” to help Members fight against protectionist pressures by ensuring transparency in the measures taken in response to the crisis. So far, thanks in large measure to WTO rules we have not seen a “tsunami” of protectionism.
But, all is not well with the global economy. Our monitoring reports show that trade restrictive measures are currently outpacing trade facilitating measures by a ratio of 2 to 1, despite G-20 pledges to refrain from such actions.
Source:WTO
