At UN debate, Barbados describes failure of global trade talks as ‘very real crisis’

The failure of the Doha Round of international trade negotiations earlier this year “represents a very real crisis,” Barbados’ Foreign Minister told the General Assembly today as she called on industrialized countries to resolve their differences so that inhabitants of the world’s poorer nations can enjoy a better standard of living.

Speaking during the Assembly’s annual debate at United Nations Headquarters in New York, Dame Billie Miller said that the differences between countries should not be insurmountable.

“There is nothing more important for small developing countries than an improved multilateral trading system if we are to have the chance to participate in and benefit from the ingoing process of globalization,” she said.

Dame Billie stressed that the trade negotiations must not only focus on liberalizing trade rules and enhancing market access for poorer countries.

“For while it is important to have agreements that open up access to markets, it is even more essential for any negotiated trade agreement to contain provisions that would assist developing countries to implement policies aimed at transforming their economies. In other words, market access is meaningless without goods and services with which to trade.”

The Barbadian Foreign Minister also called for extra support to be given to the world’s most vulnerable economies to allow them to integrate better into the multilateral trading system.

Also calling for strengthening the multilateral trading system, Belela Herrera, the Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs of Uruguay, underscored the need to bring the Doha development round to a successful conclusion. This, she said, should “ensure that the development dimension is reflected in specific results and is not limited to a simple list of programmes.”

In order to achieve this, she stressed that talks in Geneva must resume as soon as possible “always bearing in mind that we will not be able to reach a satisfactory fact result unless we eliminate the agricultural subsidies… and also significantly open up access to markets, particularly in the developed countries.”