Globalisation inst: Doha collapse - what next for free trade?
Monday, 24, Jul 2006 12:00
The Globalisation Institute today expressed disappointment at the collapse of the Doha Round of World Trade Organization talks.
According to Alex Singleton, Director-General of The Globalisation Institute, a London-based think tank, “The Doha Round has been stuck in a logjam since the failure of Cancun in 2003. We are not surprised by the collapse.”
“Now it is essential that the major players in world trade grasp the initiative and pursue unilateral and clean bilateral liberalisation. Most of the trade liberalisation over the past fifteen years has not been through the WTO anyway, but unilateral. India and China have been pursuing dramatic liberalisation programmes, acting as an example to the rest of the world that liberalisation does not have to left to complicated multilateral negotiations.”
“A decade from now the world will be considerably more liberal than today, although there is a risk that Europe will sit out at the touchline. The major trading powers need to pursue a Nike strategy with liberalisation – they should ‘Just do it!’ without requiring concessions from other nations.”
“Long term, the WTO must be reformed if it is to remain relevant.”
The Institute published last year a paper on reform of the WTO by Razeen Sally of the LSE. It is available to download from http://www.globalisationinstitute.org/publications/2005.pdf
Tonight the Globalisation Institute with the Shadow DFID Team will host a speech by Shadow International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell MP.
Mitchell will call for the creation of a Pan-African Trading Area. “For too long,” he will say, “we’ve assumed that Africans should simply be trading with developed countries. But we’ve overlooked the great potential for Africans to trade with their neighbours. And in doing so, we’ve ignored a powerful potential driver of African growth and development.”
For interviews with Alex Singleton (who is based near to Millbank), please call him on 020 7222 3546.