| Author |
Date
and source |
Quotes |
|
|
|
|
President Museveni, Uganda |
19 May 2003 The Guardian |
Africa does need development assistance, just as it needs debt
relief from its crushing international debt burden. But aid
and debt relief can only go so far. We are asking for the
opportunity to compete, to sell our goods in western markets.
In short, we want to trade our way out of poverty. |
|
Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi |
13 May 2003 The General Council meeting on Coherence at the
WTO |
Our trade negotiations have the potential to unlock substantial
new resource flows to developing countries, far exceeding those
that can be generated through official aid or debt relief.
Trade growth is key for economic growth and poverty reduction.
We must recognise the obligation we have to live up to, not only
as trade negotiators but also as representatives of governments
that have committed themselves to meet the Millennium Development
Goals and other vitally important international development
initiatives. |
|
World Bank |
13 April 2003 World Bank Press Release no 2003/287/S |
Many developing countries have made great progress in recent years
in achieving faster growth and managing their economies better.
But growth alone will not be enough to halve poverty by 2015.
Developing countries need to ensure that all people, and
especially poor people, have access to education, health care, and
put in place the right investment climate to create opportunities,
spur productivity and make real improvements in people's lives.
But they can only do that if rich countries reduce their trade
barriers that limit poor countries' potential to export and grow
their economies. We hope that rich countries will follow through
on their aid commitments, and will also take action on trade,
particularly on agriculture, at the upcoming WTO meeting in
Cancun. |
|
Nicholas Stern, Chief Economist, World Bank |
13 April 2003 The New York Times |
Growth alone will not be enough to halve poverty by 2015.
Developing countries need to ensure that all people, and
especially poor people, have access to education, health care and
put in place the right investment climate to create opportunities,
spur productivity and make real improvements in peoples lives. |
|
WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi |
19 January 2003
Speech on The Doha Development Agenda (DDA) Advanced
Training Programme for Arab Senior Government Officials
|
The
challenge facing developing countries is to restore economic
growth and create jobs, while maintaining macroeconomic stability,
persevering with domestic economic reforms, and ensuring that
trade is mainstreamed or integrated into economic policies and
strategies for poverty reduction. The real benefits of trade
liberalization are mainly realized if trade is placed firmly
within the context of a domestic reform agenda. I need not
underscore the simple but powerful truth that trade reform and
liberalization cannot stand-alone. It must be supported by
appropriate domestic policies for the full benefits to be
realized. |
|
WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi |
8 January 2003
Speech at the Plenary Session XI of the Parnership Summit
2003, Hyderabad
|
I pledged when I arrived at the WTO to put in place a long-term
strategy for technical assistance and capacity building. A
strategy that would look beyond the current negotiations, to the
implementation of agreements reached and to the integration of
trade into countries’ development strategies. Throughout this
process, I envisage much closer cooperation between the WTO and
other development agencies – regional and international, with a
more marginal role for the WTO if necessary. Greater coordination
among agencies could help to address the supply-side constraints
that prevent developing countries from benefiting from improved
market access. It could be useful, for example, to help countries
effect a transition from over-reliance on customs duties, for
government revenue, to other systems of domestic taxation, which
becomes more urgent as tariffs are lowered through trade
negotiations. |
|
WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi |
20 December 2002
Press Release issued after the WTO General Council
|
Failure to meet the deadlines in these negotiations has been quite
disappointing. These two issues are of great importance not only
to developing countries but to the organization itself and to the
broader trade negotiations that are part of the Doha Development
Agenda. |
|
UNIDO |
30 July 2002 Industrial Development Report 2002-2003:
Competing through Innovation and Learning. UNIDO;
www.unido.org/IDR
|
Developing
countries can build competitive industrial capabilities in the
current global setting but building these capabilities needs
extensive policy support because of pervasive market and
institutional failures. ... Countries that have made leaps in
industrial performance since 1985 include China, the Philippines,
Indonesia, Thailand, Ireland and Egypt. Their success was
based on adopting a strong industrial policy and supplying
labour-intensive products and components through transnational
corporations. |
|
Krit Krachiti, trade negotiator, Foreign Affairs Ministry,
Thailand |
9 July 2002 |
The principle under the World Trade Organization is to build
mechanisms to ensure free and fair trade. Thailand has
enjoyed rapid development from opening up its markets. But
you also need to think whether we are ready. The WTO is an
instrument to promote trade expansion, to promote development.
It is not an end in itself, but only a means. |
|
President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa |
8 July 2002 Independent Online |
Experience says that our peoples need democracy, good governance,
the eradication of corruiption, human rights, peace and stability.
It informs us that these masses require human development,
necessitating that we eradicate poverty and attend to such
questions as food security, health, education, clean water,
housing, gender equality, safety and security and healthy
environment. Our experience communicates the unequivocal
message that we must respond vigorously to the challenge of
ensuring the growth and development of our economies. |
| Economic
Research and Analysis Division of the WTO |
November 2001
Globalisation
Statistics 2001 |
“
The 49 least-developed countries (LDCs) as a group shared in the
dynamic global output and trade expansion, as their GDP and
trade growth exceeded the global average. The US dollar value of
their merchandise exports rose by 28% although with highly
divergent developments by country”. |
| Economic
Research and Analysis Division of the WTO |
November 2001
Globalisation
Statistics 2001
|
“Developing countries have gained
significantly from trade liberalization under the Uruguay Round
and, according to one study, would realize some US$200 billion
if remaining trade barriers were halved in a new Round. That is
three times what the developing world receives in overseas aid.
Eight times what poor countries have so far been granted in debt
relief”. |
| Economic
Research and Analysis Division of the WTO |
November 2001
Globalisation
Statistics 2001
|
“Fantastic progress
has been made in reducing poverty in developing countries.
During the last four decades, the social indicators have
improved in all regions. In the past two decades, poverty has
been drastically reduced in East Asia: from six out of ten
living on under $1 dollar a day in the mid-1970s, to two our of
the ten in the mid-1990s. There has also been a reduction in
poverty during the last few years throughout most of southern
Asia and parts of the Middle East, North Africa, and Latin
America”. |
| President
of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel |
24 October 2001
International Herald Tribune |
“Historically, trade has been a source of the economic and
cultural development of quite a number of civilizations. Today,
efficiently functioning trade is an important prerequisite for a
more stable and prosperous world. But such trade is not based on
the rules of power. It is trade based on an agreed order that
takes into account the weakest and systematically promotes their
fuller integration. It facilitates access of less developed
countries to foreign markets and thus to financial resources
needed for development. The World Trade Organization bears
witness to the will of 142 countries to abide by contractually
accepted principles and rules in their trade relations. A number
of other countries have declared their support for open,
rules-based trade, and are negotiating terms for WTO
membership”. |
| WTO
Director-General, Mike Moore |
21 October 2001
The Hindu |
“Over the past decade, developing countries have consistently
outperformed industrialised countries in terms of export growth-
an average increase of almost 10 per cent a year, compared to 5
per cent for the industrialised countries. And trade among
developing countries is growing more quickly than the trade with
the industrialised North. Last year, developing country exports
rose by 15 per cent- three times their GDP growth- the best in
five decades. Even with the current economic slowdown,
developing countries are expected to show much stronger trade
growth this year than the industrialised
economies”. |
| WTO
Director-General, Mike Moore |
21 October 2001
The Hindu
|
“The 49 Least-Developed countries saw the dollar value of their
exports rise by 28 per cent in 2000 -some $34 billion - the
second year in a row where they exceed the world average.
Bangladesh, Cambodia, Madagascar and Nepal saw their exports
soar in the 1990s- matching or even exceeding China's impressive
performance”. |
| Centre
for International Economics, Australian Agency for
International Development, Australian Department of
Foreign Affairs and Trade and Australian Treasury |
16 October 2001
Report entitled “Globalisation and Poverty - Turning the
Corner” |
“Two notable examples among many ‘new globalisers’ are China
and India. When these two countries rose out of the list of the
20 poorest countries in the 1980s,they took a large share of the
world ’s population out of extreme poverty. Around 2.2 billion
people in these two countries have,on average,seen their
material standards of living rise remarkably over the past two
decades. At the same time,people in some other,smaller countries
have remained poor. Many newly formed states have weak
institutions and have been impoverished by the conflicts that
led to their formation,creating new entrants to the ranks of the
world ’s poorest countries. Encumbered by internal
conflict,poor governance,anti-business policies and low
participation in international trade,these countries have
excluded themselves from the process of globalisation,sometimes
even producing declining incomes and rising poverty”.
Link to the full Report
(pdf format, 725 KB, p. 32) |
| European
Union Trade Commissioner, Pascal Lamy |
1 October 2001
Agence France Press
|
“We, the developed countries, must do much
more to foster economic growth in the developing world, to create
a more stable and development-oriented set of international trade
rules as the basis for our trading relations, and in so doing,
help to combat poverty, inequality and exclusion...There is only
one way to achieve this: by launching a new trade round aimed at
tackling all the issues related to development through trade,
strengthening of the common market rules and improving of mutual
market access”. |
| Tanzanian
President, Benjamin Mkapa |
30 September 2001
Reuters
|
“Rules of global economy and trade that end
up making poor countries poorer, instead of narrowing the gap
between the rich and poor, are rules that Tanzania has opposed and
will continue to oppose with all its strength as coordinator of
Least Developed Countries”. |
| Prime
Minister of Belgium, Guy Verhofstadt |
26 September 2001
The Nigeria Guardian |
“What is
suddenly so wrong with globalisation? Until recently even
progressive intellectuals were singing the praises of a worldwide
market, which, they said, would bring prosperity and well-being to
countries where before there was only poverty and decline. And
they were right. Experience has shown that the per capita
income of a country's population rises by one per cent for every
one per cent that it opens up its economy. This explains the
wealth of Singapore, which contrasts so sharply with the poverty
of a closed economy such as Myanmar. In short, prior to Seattle,
globalisation was not a sin but a blessing for mankind. This was
in stark contrast to the dissenting voices on the far right that
bemoaned the loss of identity in a globalised world. But ever
since Seattle, you have been shunning globalism as if it were a
modern-day form of bubonic plague, sowing poverty and ruin. Of
course, globalisation, as a movement that disregards national
borders, can easily deteriorate into a form of “selfishness
without frontiers”. For the rich West, free trade is
naturally something that should be embraced wholeheartedly...as
long as it is not in products that can harm Western economies. No
sugar from Third World countries. No textiles or manufactured
garments from North Africa. In this regard, then, your
anti-globalisation protests are well founded. The much vaunted
free world trades moves largely in one direction: from the rich
Northern countries to the poor South”. |
| Prime
Minister of Belgium, Guy Verhofstadt |
26 September 2001
The Nigeria Guardian
|
“Finally,
world trade needs to be further liberalised. If all world markets
were fully opened up to competition then the total income of
developing countries would be boosted by $700 billion per year, or
14 times the total development aid that they currently receive. No
more dumping of Western agricultural surpluses on Third World
markets. No more exceptions for bananas, rice or sugar. The only
trade ban would be on weapons”.Everything but arms“
must be the motto of all future negotiating rounds of the World
Trade Organisation”. |
| US
Trade Representative, Ambassador Robert Zoellick |
14 September 2001
USTR Press Release
|
“ America has
been attacked by those who want us to retreat from world
leadership. Let there be no misunderstanding: the United States
will continue to advance the values that define this nation -
openness, opportunity, democracy and compassion. Trade reinforces
these values, serving as an engine of growth and a source of hope
for workers and families in the United States and the world. Trade
is particularly vital today for developing nations that are
increasingly relying on the international economy to overcome
poverty and create opportunity”. |
| US
Trade Representative, Ambassador Robert Zoellick |
14 September 2001
USTR Press Release
|
“While we
will take every possible step to ensure security, it is important
that the World Trade Organization meeting in Doha proceed so that
the world trading system can continue to promote international
growth, development, and openness”. |
| Nobel
Prize Laureate, James Tobin |
4
September 2001
DPA News Release
|
“Noisy
approval comes from the wrong side. I am an economist and approve
the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Trade
Organization, all which this movement attacks. They are misusing
my name”. |
| Director
of the Institute for Golbal Health, Richard G. A. Feachem |
1
September 2001
British Medical Journal, Vol 323, p 504-506
|
“The
evidence that openness to trade and investment is good for
economic growth is compelling and goes back several centuries. We
can see this effect not only in the multi-country econometric
analyses but also the recent experiences of individual countries.
China, India, Uganda and Vietnam, for example, have all
experienced surges in economic growth since liberalising their
trade and inward investment policies. Because gross national
product per capita correlates so strongly with national health
status, we can conclude that, in general, openness to trade
improves national health status”.
Link to the full Article |
| WTO
Director-General, Mike Moore |
28
August 2001
Area Finanzas
|
“La
reducción a la mitad de los obstáculos al comercio aplicados
podría beneficiar al mundo en desarrollo en más de 200.000
millones de dólares al año, según el estúdio de François :
78.000 millones para América Latina, 43.000 millones para los
países de la ASEAN, 11.000 millones para la India, 6.500 millones
para Africa y 63.000 millones para otros países en
desarrollo”. |
| Singapore
Prime Minister, Goh Chok Tong |
27 August 2001
Agence France Press
|
“Far from
being the cause of poverty and other misery, globalization is the
solution”. |
| Former
US Government Trade Official, Richard Rivers |
22
August 2001
Finantial Times
|
“There is
no doubt that the expansion of trade under the General Agreement
of Tariffs and Trade and WTO system during the past 50 years has
greatly benefited all participants, rich as well as poor”. |
| Indian
Prime Minister, A.B. Vajpayee |
20
August 2001
Reuters
|
“We have
always recognised that International Trade can be a powerfull
engine of economic growth around the world”. |
| Mozambican
President, Joaquim Chissano |
20
August 2001
Reuters
|
“Globalisation is a process that seems irreversible, and given that
fact, we are left with the only choice available to join it, but
not passively”.
|
| Head
of Media of the World Bank, Caroline Anstey |
17
August 2001
Finantial Times
|
“We found
that the 3 bn people living in the 24 developing countries that
have integrated into the world economy most successfully have
gained from higher incomes, longer life expectancy and better
schooling. These countries enjoyed an average 5 per cent growth
rate in the 1990s compared with 2 percent in rich
countries...Pulling our heads, ostrich like, into the sand is not
the answer. Putting in place safety nets and sound policies, and
pulling down rich country trade barriers, just might be”. |
| Philip
Stephens |
17
August 2001
Finantial Times
|
“The
Champions of liberal markets are in full retreat. There is only
one way they can make themselves heard again over the angry shouts
of the protesters. They must stop making the cause for
globalisation - and start fighting the cause of better
globalisation”. |
| Directeur
du Centre de receherche au CNRS |
14
August 2001
La Tribune
|
“La
libéralisation des échanges est un facteur de développement si
et seulement si l'ouverture est gérée dans le temps, avec des
périodes de transition. Il suffit de comparer la situation
chinoise et la situation russe pour le comprendre”. |
| WTO
Director-General, Mike Moore |
9
August 2001
Reuters
|
“Moore
expounded on those figures, noting that U.S. textile imports rose
196 percent from Pakistan, 85 percent from Bangladesh, 100 percent
from Indonesia and 99 percent from Thailand between 1995 and
2000”. |
| US
Trade Representative, Ambassador Robert Zoellick |
9
August 2001
Reuters
|
“Zoellick
noted that India's textile exports to the United States have risen
84 percent because of Uruguay Round reductions in U.S. barriers
and India's exports of farm goods to the United states have grown
by 74 percent”. |
| Mario
Vargas Llosa |
8
August 2001
El País
|
“La
realidad de nuestro tiempo es la de un mundo en el que las
antiguas fronteras nacionales se han ido desvaneciendo hasta casi
desaparecer en ciertos campos - la economía, la tecnología, la
ciencia, la información, la cultura, aunque no en lo político y
otras esferas- estableciendo, cada vez más, entre los países de
los cinco continentes, una interdependência que conspira
frontalmente con la vieja idea del Estado-Nación y sus
prerrogativas tradicionales. El mejor indicio de lo irreversible
de este proceso globalizador son, como lo ha recordado Amartya
Sen, los proprios militantes antiglobalizadores variopinta
colectividad de muchos países, lengua y credos que se comunican y
coordinan sus mítines a través del Internet”. |
| Mario
Vargas Llosa |
8
August 2001
El País
|
“Nada
ayudaría más a los países pobres a salir de la pobreza, por
ejemplo - los ayudaría mucho más que la condonación de la
deuda- que los países occidentales les abrieran las fronteras
para sus productos agrícolas, medida que resisten a tomar por
culpa de los productores nacionales que, gracias a aranceles y
subsidios, mantienen una agricultura y industria agrícolas sobre
protegidas que le cuestan un ojo de la cara al cidadan común de
cualquier democracia occidental”. |
| Secretary
General of the International Chamber of Commerce, Maria Livanos Cattaui |
27
July 2001
International Chamber of Commerce press releases.
|
“Power relationships in trade diplomacy
have changed. Almost three out of four of the 141 members of the
World Trade Organization are from the developing world. They want
to be sure that they get a square deal - something most are
convinced that the previous Uruguay Round did not give them. They
are resolved to be more assertive than in the past in pursuit of
their interests, and who can blame them? If
the developing countries are to sign on to new multilateral trade
negotiations, they will do so only if they can be confident of
gaining more generous access to the markets of the industrialised
countries, especially for products in which they have a
competitive advantage, like agricultural products and textiles.
And they will expect help in implementing undertakings they made
under the previous Uruguay Round”.
|
| Asian
Development Bank |
Global
Poverty Report 2001 |
“Trade is
critically important for growth and poverty reduction. Poverty is
primarily reduced by (i) creating an environment in which there
are more and more opportunities for poor people to earn a living
and to work their way out of poverty, and (ii) by putting in place
supporting mechanisms that give them a voice in decisions that
have a bearing on their lives. A globalized marketplace can help
provide such opportunities for the poor, along with a stable
macroeconomic environment, hospitable investment climate,
efficient public services, and access to information
technology”. |
Home
TRADE RESOURCES
