|
Jeffrey J. Schott, Institute for International Economics,
Washington |
6 November 2002 Letters to the Financial Times |
"Your
basic premise is that a lot of small free trade agreements do
little to liberalise trade, while increasing transaction costs
and creating obstacles to multilateral reform. Why, then,
do so many developing countries seek such pacts with the trading
powers of Europe and North America? The short answer is
that FTAs are investment-driven. The pacts reinforce
domestic economic reforrms and so encourage foreign direct
investment which is critical to development strategies.
Such investments generally are not made to hide beind tariff
walls; rather, the investors tend to lobby for
most-favoured-nation tariff reforms so they can source most
efficiently and keep pace with global competition." |
| APEC |
27
October 2002 APEC Leaders Meeting Declaration, Los Cabos,
Mexico
Full text |
"We
welcomed the launch of new multilateral trade negotiations in
Doha and encouraged all economies to pursue substantive
negotiations in all areas of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA)
by the agreed timelines to ensure that the deadline of 1 January
2005 to conclude such negotiations is met. We called for
progress across all areas in the lead-up to the 2003 WTO Fifth
Ministerial Conference in Cancun.
We agreed
that these negotiations hold the prospect of real gains for all
economies, and particularly developing economies, in the areas
of agricultural reform, improved market access for goods and
services, and clarification and improvement of trade
disciplines.
We agreed
that one of the objectives of the negotiations should be the
abolition of all forms of agricultural export subsidies, and
unjustifiable export prohibitions and restrictions.
We also
remain committed to on-going work in the negotiating group on
rules. Such negotiations are aimed at clarifying and improving
disciplines under the Agreements on the Implementation of
Article VI of the GATT 1994 and on Subsidies and Countervailing
Measures, while preserving the basic concepts, principles and
effectiveness of these agreements and their instruments and
objectives.
We agreed
that APEC should further contribute to the DDA negotiations by
encouraging and coordinating confidence building activities in
all areas of the agenda, including investment, competition,
trade facilitation, transparency in government procurement, and
trade and environment. |
|
Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi |
22
October 2002 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting, Mexico |
"Regional
trade pacts should be building blocks rather than stumbling
blocks to a comprehensive global trade deal. We (WTO) need
to track and monitor regional agreements in a way that we can
try and guide them in a direction so that they can become
building blocks for multinational agreements." |
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