As the WTO’s Director General, Roberto Azevedo, meets international business leaders in London today (Tuesday 8 April), TheCityUK welcomes the new emphasis being given to tackling three pressing trade themes in the drive to reduce international trade barriers and promote global growth:
- a forward WTO work programme that gives services full and equal weight with goods and agriculture;
- express recognition by the international community of the complementary contributions of bilateral, plurilateral and multilateral approaches to global market-opening; and
- implementation by WTO's members of the Bali trade facilitation package - potentially worth US$1trillion to the world economy.
TheCityUK believes these themes build on the historic deal reached at last year’s Bali Ministerial meeting to lower global trade barriers. They also re-inject momentum into the WTO as the guardian and promoter of a multilateral rules-based system for world-wide trade that underpins and promotes international business activity.
Today's discussions also set down a challenge from business to explore how far the WTO can tackle behind-the-border barriers[1], the new and emerging '21st Century Agenda[2]' issues, as well as the crucial developing relationship between the WTO and those of its members negotiating the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA)[3], a potentially game-changing, services-only free trade agreement.
Gary Campkin, Director, International Strategy said:
“TheCityUK looks forward to working with the WTO and its members to now help deliver the global trade opportunities provided by the Bali Agreement, as well as the jobs and wealth-creation offered by future agreements – including TiSA and TTIP - to increase trade and investment across the world.”
ENDS
Note to editors
- The "Twenty-First Century Agenda" covers impediments to trade of a relatively new kind, such as restrictions on data-flows or data-processing, "forced localisation" (when a host country requires businesses establishing in it to use local inputs of goods or services) or competition on unfair terms with local state-owned enterprises or monopoly suppliers.
- The Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) is a services-only agreement currently under negotiation in Geneva between a subset of the total WTO membership (Australia, Canada, Chile, Chinese Taipei, Colombia, Costa Rica, the EU, Hong Kong China, Iceland, Israel, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Pakistan, Peru, Switzerland, Turkey and the USA). China and Uruguay have also applied to join the negotiations.
[1] Internal domestic regulatory barriers
[2] Data-flow restrictions, unfair competition with state-owned enterprises, establishment conditions and other measures, impacting business
[3] The Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) currently being negotiated in Geneva