MADRID (dpa-AFX) - Amid unilateral tariff measures and record levels of policy uncertainty, the World Trade Organization estimates that global merchandise trade volumes for the year will be 'basically flat,' growing by just 0.1 per cent.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General of the World Trade Organization, said that after increasing rich countries' incomes, lifting 1.5 billion people out of poverty in the developing world, the global trading system is now 'severely disrupted.'
She was addressing the UN's fourth International Conference on Financing for Development that kicked off in Spain's southern city of Sevilla on Monday.
Outlining steps needed to bolster global trade's stability, she cited the value of cooperative solutions rather than unilateral approaches. 'But, at the same time, we also need to ask: 'How did we get here?' she said, stressing the need to respond to legitimate criticisms and reposition of the WTO.
'We must not waste this crisis,' she added, calling for more regional trade agreements and foreign investment to countries and communities on the margins of the global economy.
'We have large amounts of financing locked up in harmful subsidies,' she said, noting that almost $2 trillion is locked up in harmful or wasteful fossil fuel agriculture, water and fisheries subsidies. 'Repurposing even some of these subsidies would 'put a lot of the resources we need in our hands', she pointed out.
World leaders unanimously adopted the 'Sevilla Commitment' outcome document, recommending that the UN General Assembly endorse it at its seventy-ninth session.
By the terms of the document, heads of state and government and high representatives committed to a renewed global financing for development framework and action in three key areas: domestic public resources; science, technology, innovation and capacity-building; and monitoring and follow-up. .
From rising debt and shrinking investment, to the aid funding crisis and struggles to meet ambitious development goals, the global financial system is failing the people it is supposed to serve: that's the challenge facing world leaders gathered in Spain this week, the UN said in a press release.
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