Completing Doha Round is a 'political must' - Lamy
17 Aug '07
3 min read
Director-General Pascal Lamy, in a speech in Kuala Lumpur on 17 August 2007, said today's challenges are “resisting protectionist tendencies, investing in policies which ensure that the benefits of trade are spread fairly among and within countries and investing in a stable multilateral trading system”.
He also commended Trade Minister Datuk Seri Rafidah Aziz and Amb. Muhamad Noor Yacob, currently chair of the WTO General Council, for their “tireless efforts in support of a more open trading system”. This is what he said:
It is a great pleasure for me to join you all here in Malaysia. I would like to thank my good friend Minister Rafidah for her kind invitation to share with you my vision of the trends and challenges facing world trade today. Malaysia is a good place to do so.
Its economic development provides a good example of how an open market economy and strong government leadership work well together.
Thanks to the Malaysian Government's successful growth-oriented policies, including trade opening, prudent macroeconomic strategies and structural reforms in key areas, the economy is now on track and has fully recovered from the Asian financial crisis. This was a formidable task and Malaysia should be commended for it.
Global trade is different today due to globalization: The first point I would make is that due to globalization, world trade is very different today compared with 50 years ago. The number of countries involved in global trade has expanded, the cost of trade has been significantly reduced, production methods have changed, as have trade barriers.
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