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Commonwealth Secretariat press release

Secretary-General Says Doha Failure Not An Option

25 July 2006

Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon made the following statement in response to the latest developments in the Doha Development Agenda talks.

"The suspension of the WTO Doha Development Agenda talks yesterday is an alarming step towards their outright failure. Apportioning blame is a fruitless task; asking who suffers from failed world trade talks (and the one-sided, protectionist, regional or bilateral trade agreements which emerge in their place) is not. If we really are global citizens, we must act as such. Economic success is a fine thing - but when it comes despite or even at the expense of the world's poorest people, it is simply no thing at all.

The Commonwealth, home to 80 per cent of the world's poor, again calls on all developed countries to demonstrate the political courage and will to give more than they receive in the Doha Development Round.

53 Heads of Government subscribed to these words at their meeting in Valletta, Malta, in November 2005. They were sentiments supported by US Trade Negotiator Susan Schwab when I met her in May this year. They capture the spirit of last week's G8 Summit in St Petersburg, where G8 and leading G20 countries seemed to be of one mind. All seem to agree that trade is the most effective route out of poverty; all realise that for rich and poor countries alike longer term prosperity and security is dependent on trade that is as free as it is fair.

I urge developed and developing countries - the G8 and the G20 - to allow poor countries the capacity to trade. I urge them to recapture the spirit of Valletta and of St Petersburg, and to agree to agree. The Doha Round cannot be allowed to fail in delivering a development dividend. 800 million Commonwealth citizens subsisting on less than $1 each day would countenance nothing less."

 

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