The impetus of multilateral trading system was formed to overcome the outbreak of protectionism in the 1930s and its severe scarring effects. With the expansion of membership over last six decades, it has transformed into the current system, represented by the World Trade Organization. The positive contribution of the WTO in trade liberalization has been well-acknowledged, especially in terms of setting out rule-based global trading system and leading the participation of heterogeneous economies at various development levels in it. According to the WTO, the volume of trade has increased two-and-a-half times since the launch of the WTO. Such explosive increase of global trade is believed to have created better opportunities for faster ecnomic growth, higher levels of job creation, and poverty reduction across countries.
Despite the success and achievements realized so far, the current multilateral trading system has confronted significant challenges. Sluggish progress and repeated delays of the Doha Round negotiations in consequence have failed to provide proper venues to explore new trading rules in a fast-evolving global economic environment. At the same time, the rise of protectionist sentiment and corresponding trade-restrictive actions across countries since the global financial crisis pose another challenge along with slow eeconomic recovery, stagnated trade growth and widening income inequality. In spite of numerous evidence of positive benefits from trade, escalating dissatisfaction towards trade liberalization puts the pursuit of trade liberalization and economic integration on the defensive as populist backlash against trade prevails even among the world’s leading economies.
Notwithstanding such widely-accepted consensus that we need to break the current political stalemate and move forward in pursuit of trade liberalization, the answer to how to elicit international cooperation for it under the current multilateral trading system does not seem so clear.
In this session, we first would like to assess the achievements and the challenges of the multilateral trading system, especially in the context of current economic environment. Then we will explore all the possible options for the changes of the current multilateral trading system and ways to enhance the international cooperation in trade liberalization.
With the entry into force of the WTO’s landmark Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA), governments are set to accomplish the vital task of transforming the TFA provisions into concrete reforms to be implemented nationally.
Effective engagement and contribution of the private sector is crucial to ensuring the success of trade facilitation and maximizing its impact on economic development and poverty reduction. The Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation is at the centre of such efforts.
What lessons can we learn from practical experiences of public-private collaboration around trade facilitation? What are the ways forward?
Two years on from the Alliance’s launch at MC10 in Nairobi, please join us for a discussion on lessons learned from its initial portfolio of projects in countries including Colombia, Vietnam, Kenya, Ghana and Sri Lanka. Practical experiences will be also shared from other participants and ways forward for further leveraging the private sector will be discussed.
Note: This session will be in the form of an interactive workshop with breakout table discussions without interpretation.
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Services and service providers in the least-developed countries (LDC) face barriers in accessing developing and developed countries’ markets. These restrictions—mostly related to commercial presence and the movement of natural persons to provide services—notably come in the form of visa policies and non-recognition of qualifications. Movement of a person from an LDC to developed countries, which is one of the modes of services trade under the World Trade Organization (WTO), is the most restricted of all. To develop LDCs’ services sector, the 9th WTO Ministerial Conference granted a Services Waiver. In response to the collective waiver request submitted by the LDC Group on 21 July 2014, so far 23 developing and developed country members have offered concessions and preferences to the LDC members. The Waiver brings in challenges along with opportunities to the LDCs. There are ambiguities in the modality of implementation of the Waiver itself, and developed countries have not responded well to the LDC request.
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