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Moore Defends WTO Prior to Doha Meeting |
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Mike Moore, the director general of the World Trade Organization (WTO), said Thursday in Doha that the WTO should not be labeled as evil because of the backlash against globalization.
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Mike Moore, the director general of the World Trade Organization (WTO), said Thursday in Doha that the WTO should not be labeled as evil because of the backlash against globalization.
It was vital to launch new multilateral trade negotiations in Doha to help advance a slowing world economy, he said.
Moore was addressing a public conference organized by non-governmental organizations one day before the opening of the 4th WTO ministerial conference. He said the WTO, which has been criticized by anti-globalization activists for failing to address the negative effect of globalization, only did its job under the instruction of its 142 members.
"We do as our members allow us to do and instruct us to do," he said.
However, he stressed that trade liberation itself should not be blamed for poverty or other social problems occurring during the process of globalization. "No country became poor because there was too much trade, and no country went bankrupt because of too much investment," he added.
Noting that "trade is an important element of development," the WTO leader said his organization has learnt lessons from the failure to launch a new round of global trade talks during its last ministerial meeting in Seattle in 1999, and great attention had been paid to concerns of developing countries in preparation for the Doha conference.
He said that about half of the development issues raised during the Seattle conference would be addressed by trade ministers of WTO members during the next few days in Doha, with the rest to be solved in multilateral trade negotiations in the next few years.
Moore warned against another failure to launch new global trade talks. He said the cost of acceleration of regionalism and bilateralism as well as the cost of the thicket of national trade regulations must be taken into consideration.
The 4th WTO ministerial meeting is due to be held on November 9-13 in Doha, capital of the tiny Gulf Arab state of Qatar. It is expected to try to launch new multilateral trade negotiations and also formally approve China's accession to the WTO.
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