Global treaties to cut barriers to international trade aren't enough to boost the economies of the world's poorest nations, a senior United Nations official said Wednesday.
Countries can't benefit from easier access to foreign markets unless they get help to improve their infrastructure, train staff and attract investment, said Rubens Ricupero, secretary-general of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development. Without that help, nations simply can't supply the products even if consumers want to buy them, he said.
"I think there is more to the equation that trade brings development than trade negotiations, because we have to make countries capable of trading," Ricupero said.
"People still think that (increased production capacity) will automatically follow trade negotiations, and I think this is the big delusion."
He pointed out that countries in sub-Saharan Africa have enjoyed special low tariffs on exports to the European Union for 30 years, yet many still are the poorest countries in the world because they don't have the capacity to produce and export.
Ricupero, a former Brazilian Environment Minister, steps down later this year after nine years at the top of the 192-nation UNCTAD.
During that time, he said, poorer nations have learned to make their voices heard at the World Trade Organization by forming groupings that are holding an increasingly powerful position in negotiations on a new treaty to reduce import tariffs and other barriers to free international trade.
The question of constraints on production remains, however, "the dark side of the moon," Ricupero said.
UNCTAD is holding its four-yearly meeting in Sao Paulo, Brazil, next month, and the WTO talks will be high on the agenda. The UNCTAD meeting comes just weeks before a deadline for negotiators at the 147-nation WTO to agree on a framework for the treaty.
"In Sao Paulo we will have the presence of all the developing countries," Ricupero said.
"It will be an occasion where unavoidably those countries will have to take stock of the current state of the efforts to resume negotiations."
WTO talks have been virtually stalled since the collapse of the organization's ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico, last September.
Ricupero said the biggest issue to tackle in the talks is the fact that current WTO agreements virtually outlaw government subsidies to producers of manufactured goods but still allow rich nations to pay hundreds of billions of dollars annually to their farmers.
Poor nations say those agricultural subsidies mean they are unable to compete in the international marketplace even though they can produce many products more cheaply than farmers in industrialized countries.
"If we don't deal with that, the world trading system will remain a work-in-progress, something that is unfinished," Ricupero said.Associated Press:
