By NAOMI KOPPEL Associated Press Writer
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - Appealing to rich nations to open up their markets, the chief of the World Trade Organization said today that aid handouts cannot help the poorest countries as much as selling goods in real free trade.
Mike Moore told the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development that trade could be a force for peace in the world, but a lot of work was still needed.
"We must make the system work fairer and better," Moore declared. "It is clear that the new division in the world is between those who are inside and those who are outside the global economy."
Moore presided over the WTO's attempt to launch a new round of trade negotiations last year in Seattle to define commerce in the globalized age.
But the meeting collapsed amid violent street protests and disputes between rich and poor nations and between the biggest trade powers: the United States, the European Union and Japan.
Moore said it was vital to try again as soon as possible. WTO talks on agricultural subsidies that officially started last week in Geneva should benefit the rural poor, Moore said.
But he cautioned that nations needed to be more flexible and act rapidly to break the wider deadlock that he believes will lead to regional trade blocs forming.
"The flip side of regionalism is exclusion," Moore said. "The multilateral system is still the best chance the southern and poorer economies have of levering something out of the system."
The UNCTAD meeting, held every four years, had been billed by organizers as the first big conference since Seattle that had a chance to get the paralyzed trade process moving. About 160 countries have sent representatives.
Apart from Japan, no wealthy nations sent high-level delegations, but the meeting has given a sounding board for leaders, ministers, U.N. officials and nongovernmental groups - whose input is being actively sought to avoid a repeat of Seattle.
Walden Bello, a veteran Third World campaigner, said nongovernmental organizations had been dismissed with "platitudes." Activists were not against globalization, but were concerned with "what kind of globalization."
In his speech, Moore said one of his biggest disappointments in Seattle was his failure to persuade wealthy nations to open up their markets to goods from the world's 48 least-developed countries.
"There's no point in spending billions in aid if production can't then get to the market," Moore said.
Moore faced questions from developing countries who felt they were still not getting a fair deal in the WTO.
One Indian lawmaker said the tools that now-rich countries used during their own development were being ruled illegal. For example, nations have been told by the WTO they cannot make laws requiring goods to be manufactured using local products.
Security was tightened around the conference center for Moore's appearance, but there was no violence.
On Sunday, an American anti-free trade activist threw a pie in the face of outgoing International Monetary Fund chief Michel Camdessus. He was unhurt.
Moore, 51, a former New Zealand prime minister, and Camdessus have been targeted by critics of the world economic system.
James D. Wolfensohn, president of another controversial institution, the World Bank, said in a speech that people in poor nations want the same things as people everywhere - better lives, opportunity, security for their children.
But outside the convention center, 500 protesters blamed World Bank-funded projects for ruining their lives.
Utai Wongpan, 65, said she had a small fishery on the Moon river in northeastern Thailand before the World Bank financed a Thai government plan to dam it. After the construction, there were no more fish, she said.
The meeting ends Saturday with the adoption of an action plan that will be presented to the WTO and other organizations.:
