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A senior official of the World Trade Organization on Monday urged governments to resist the temptation of trade protectionism in the face of economic difficulties.
"While providing responses to the crisis and taking domestic measures to mitigate their effects and stimulate growth, countries need to abide by their multilateral commitments to avoid protectionism and isolationism," said Valentine Rugwabiza, deputy WTO director-general, at a special high level meeting at UN Headquarters.
"Adopting such policies or measures will only make things worse," she noted.
The UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) was holding the one-day meeting along with the Bretton Woods Institutions, WTO and the UN Conference on Trade and Development to discuss the impacts of the global financial and economic crisis on development.
To date, there has been no indication of "a slide into what we can call intensive protectionism," which means aggressive moves by governments to restrict trade discriminately and close all sectors, she said.
But she urged governments to remain vigilant and avoid even what can be "low-intensity protectionist measures," including those that target trade restrictions at a specific sector for the protection of jobs and business profit margins.
"The most effective stimulus package for developing countries is the trade of goods and services," she added.
At last November's G20 summit in Washington, leaders underscored the critical importance of rejecting protectionism and not turning inward in times of financial uncertainty.
They committed to refrain, during the next 12 months, from raising new barriers to investment or to trade in goods and services, imposing new export restrictions, or implementing WTO-inconsistent measures to stimulate exports.
"However, many countries could increase their applied levels of tariffs and trade-distorting subsidies without breaching their bound rates or other relevant WTO disciplines," said the latest Global Monitoring Report released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
There has been "a marked increase in protectionist pressures globally since September 2008, including by a number of G-20 countries," the report said, citing WTO figures.
"Although there is no general trend, a pattern is beginning to emerge of increases in import licensing, import tariffs and surcharges, and trade remedies to support industries facing difficulties early on in the crisis," the report said. |
