Trade and Sustainable Development Symposium

With ongoing slow global economic growth, countries continue to work on the levers of dynamic growth and sustainable development. A key strategy is to focus on attracting and facilitating foreign investment inflows in order to enhance a country's participation and movement along global value chains (GVCs), an approach expected to not only create more jobs, but better jobs, and growth. Over the last decades however, despite attracting record amounts of foreign direct investment before 2007, in most cases, developing countries have found that the investments attracted were either short-term, or had failed to generate sufficient spillovers and backward linkages, resulting in a local private sector that was not competitive enough to participate and upgrade along additional global value chains. Given such a trend, this session will seek to contribute to a better understanding of why developing countries struggle to increase, retain, and benefit from the investments attracted. How should policies and frameworks be adapted to not only increase investments, but to facilitate the flow of sustainable investments? This session, leveraging the momentum of recent discussions taking place at the WTO and the G20 on investment, aims to explore options for additional international coordination, for the purpose of increasing global flows in sustainable investments. 

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A backlash against economic globalisation has swept through many economies in the two years since trade ministers met in Nairobi, Kenya. The losses and gains, real or perceived, from trade have been actively debated. Simultaneously, governments have universally endorsed the 2030 Agenda, a blueprint to achieve inclusion and sustainability at the national level and in the global economy. What can trade policy now do to boost confidence in a system that works for all? Where can trade policy help to deliver growth and jobs of the future amid a rapidly changing technology landscape?

The E15 Initiative (E15) opening plenary session aims to move beyond the debate on the merits and demerits of economic globalisation to focus on where trade policy, and particularly the WTO agenda, can deliver for sustainable development. This plenary session will assess the prospects for the future of the global economy and trade growth, in terms of major trade policy changes that can contribute to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. This evaluation will take into account the role of major economies in safeguarding and improving trade governance to serve a more inclusive, balanced, and sustainable development course.

The plenary will set the stage for the targeted discussion to take place in the E15 track at the TSDS focused both on the Eleventh WTO Ministerial Conference (MC11), as well as the functioning of the WTO and potential deliverables in the long-term.

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E-commerce holds promise for delivering new business opportunities and inclusive trade. But it has not yet lifted all boats. This session will explore the extent to which the trade policy community can contribute to improving the enabling environment for cross-border e-commerce and, as a priority, ensuring this works for development and small business. Participants will discuss what specific issues — from electronic payments to logistics — would most benefit from trade policy interventions as well as where public-private collaboration can help.

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Full implementation of the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) could reduce trade costs globally by up to 17.5%, with the largest drops expected in low and lower middle income countries. Many countries are eager to replicate the TFA experience by simplifying and harmonising procedures in other policy areas, such as investment, services and e-commerce. Potential efforts include harmonising, simplifying and automating the notification and publication of services measures and investment regulations and laws; simplifying the procedures for investment and license applications; and enhancing cooperation amongst national focal agencies. This session seeks to assess whether the facilitation model is a useful multilateral framework to address behind-the-border barriers to trade. Additionally, the session will also examine potential lessons from where the TFA has spurred capacity building, including through public-private partnerships, to enable implementation of commitments in developing countries. 

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Ten years on from the financial crisis, countries continue to seek out levers to reinvigorate dynamic growth and sustainable development. Many are increasingly re-examining the use of industrial policies as a means to promote industrial growth, diversification and structural transformation, to build toward a more resilient economy. This session seeks to review how industrial policies have evolved in light of recent changes in the global economy, technology, and trade and investment patterns; and to determine whether existing international trade and investment systems provides adequate policy space for countries to achieve their sustainable development objectives, whilst facilitating 21st century international patterns of production.

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A recent IMF study places global fossil fuel subsidies at US$5.3 trillion, or 6.5% of global GDP. Among a range of negative societal effects, such subsidies boost greenhouse gas emissions and further spur climate change, undermining parallel efforts made by the international community. Political developments over the past few years, including in the G20, the G7, the United Nations Agenda 2030 and the Paris Agreement on climate change, show an increasing recognition of the need to put an end to these perverse subsidies. However, it has proven difficult to move from high-level declarations into concrete action. Trade policy, and more precisely the WTO, could play an important role in this regard. This session seeks to shed light on the impact of fossil fuel subsidises on the environment and will discuss if and how the WTO could become equipped to effectively discipline these subsidies. 

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An agreement among WTO Members to reform certain harmful fisheries subsidies is one of the most likely substantive outcomes of MC11.  There may also be agreement to build on the results announced at Buenos Aires in further work at the WTO. This session will consider the magnitude and impacts of harmful subsidies provided to the global fishing fleet. It will consider the likely shape of an outcome on this issue, how far the outcome goes in meeting the challenge of collective action on disciplines on fisheries subsidies, and where further work would be needed.

In the 2014-16 period, some 795 million people were estimated to be undernourished. The Eleventh WTO Ministerial Conference (MC11) represents a key opportunity for governments to take steps towards SDG 2, that of ending hunger and malnutrition, one of the key commitments under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. As policies affecting trade and markets are critical to improving food and nutrition security, this session will explore steps governments can take to build on progress realised at previous ministerials. In particular, the session will address how policymakers can contribute to the goals of the 2030 Agenda by fostering more equitable and sustainable markets for food and agriculture.

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