Amid calls from poor countries for the elimination of agricultural subsidies, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged representatives of 180 nations to push for free trade agreements that will raise global living standards.
"Let us help developing countries take full advantage of trading opportunities," Annan said Monday at the opening of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. "And let us find our way to a development-led approach to trade and other policies that will enrich and empower all the world's peoples."
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who became a strong voice on free trade issues after taking office last year, said the developing world should learn how to use globalization instead of denouncing it.
While activists condemn globalization as unfettered free trade that benefits multinational corporations, Silva said it can be harnessed - to help poor countries gain greater market access, eliminate misery and obtain funding to improve infrastructure and technology.
"Globalization is not synonymous with development, it is not a substitute for development, but it can be used as an instrument for development," said Silva, Brazil's first elected leftist leader.
The forum is bringing together ministers of the world's richest and poorest countries in Sao Paulo, Brazil's financial and industrial capital amid the tightest security the city has ever seen. Thousands of soldiers toting semiautomatic rifles are posted at street corners and on overpasses.
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said poor countries must drop their own barriers to mutual trade instead of waiting for international agreements that could give them better access to the markets of their richer counterparts.
"Given the increasingly zero-sum attitude of the north towards trade, we should diversify our risk by exploring more opportunities in the south," Thaksin said
Silva, echoing the views of many conference delegates, said poor countries will grab a larger share of world trade if they can find ways to reduce barriers among themselves.
He said 44 developing countries who signed the Global System of Trade Preferences will hold new talks on reducing tariffs. Silva also said he hopes to enlist 40 new member countries from the developing world.
They could also use advances as a way to put pressure on richer countries to get rid of trade barriers.
The GSTP accord "lets developing countries eliminate reciprocal commercial barriers without the need of extending the same concessions to the developed world," Silva said.
Humanitarian groups welcomed Silva's announcement, but warned that sudden liberalization of free trade between developing countries could hurt the world's poorest nations.
While Brazilian farmers use advanced technology, millions of Indian farmers could be wiped out if Brazilian agricultural products flooded India, said Katia Maia of Oxfam International.
"Less developed countries must retain the right to protect vulnerable farm sectors and infant industries," she said.
But forum delegates said the elimination of agricultural trade advantages in wealthy countries would translate into a better life for destitute farmers with few other employment possibilities.
Their most bitter complaint: Generous subsidies in the United States and the European Union that give farmers a big competitive advantage over producers from poor countries.
Several hundred anti-globalization protesters marched Monday to a police barricade near the forum site in a sprawling convention center surrounded by legions of riot police and newly erected metal fences to protect the delegates.
"We're not terrorists!" organizers yelled from a sound truck rigged with huge speakers as they approached the barricade. "The terrorists are hunger, misery, free trade and WTO deals!"
UNCTAD held its last forum in Bangkok, Thailand, in 2000 just months after the WTO's attempt to launch a new round of trade negotiations in Seattle collapsed amid violent anti-globalization street protests.
Top trade officials met on the sidelines of the Sao Paulo conference over the weekend in a push to break down global trade barriers under the auspices of the 147-nation WTO.
They said they made progress toward ending an impasse on agricultural subsidies in developed countries, but still must resolve many technical details before a July deadline in the stalled Doha round aimed at slashing the subsidies, tariffs and other barriers.
Negotiators for the EU and the Mercosur bloc of South American countries - Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay - continued talks Monday on their bid to create a free trade zone.
The two sides are still far apart on the key issues of agricultural subsidies, services and government procurement ahead of an October deadline for a deal.
- Associated Press Writer Bernd Radowitz in Sao Paulo contributed to this report.Associated Press Online:
