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Journalism of Courage
The World Trade Organisation,or WTO,has released its latest report on the state of international trade,the World Trade Report 2009. The report differs from most of its predecessors in two important ways. First: it reveals that,according to the WTO,world trade is going to shrink by an unprecedented 10 per cent this year. That trade would shrink is not news; but this is a significant downward revision of earlier estimates of the size of that shrinkage. Second: so unsettled is the outlook for recovery,so sensitive to the policy future,that the reports writers have not included a fixture in earlier reports: predictions about world trade in the coming year. WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy,releasing the report on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation APEC ministerial meeting in Singapore,worried that the shrinkage of trade would get much worse if policy responses were trade-unfriendly even some legal temporary safety valve measures meant to prop up struggling industry,he said,would have problematic results if overused at a time of international weakness.
APECs ministers backed up this intuition,committing to not introducing any new policy initiatives that may hinder trade and investment flows as well as refraining from implementing measures that have a protectionist impact,even if the measures in question dont flout WTO rules. These signs of commitment to the free trade that will underlie any global recovery from a group that represents half of world trade are more than welcome. But this isnt enough. Regional trade can never fully substitute for a full-scale,international agreement. And so the unavoidable conclusion: the Doha Round of trade talks must be revived,and progress needs to be made on it before the end of this year,and an agreement needs to be done and dusted in 2010.
