GENEVA, CH.- The multilateral trade system is at a crossroads where failure to issue new rules that adapt to current trends and needs could erode and face negative consequences.
This is one of the arguments put forward by Luz María de la Mora, director of the Division of International Trade and Commodities of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) , when she warns that “we are in a very profound economic transition . ”
“We want an orange (creative) economy, a blue economy (sustainable use, management and conservation of marine resources), a green economy (that reduces environmental risks). So all these economies are not fully reflected in trade rules today. And we need to find a way to get there,” he said in an interview with T21 within the framework of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Public Forum 2024, which is being held at its headquarters.
The international trade policy specialist explains that there is currently an environment of lack of credibility in trade and its results , given the inequality that still exists between developed and developing economies in terms of income, although she argues that this has not been generated by trade itself.
Rather, he says, the world has faced various situations such as financial crises that have resulted in greater polarization, higher cost of services, especially health, education and housing; and, most recently, the health crisis caused by Covid that generated an accelerated and prolonged process of inflation, along with imbalances between supply and demand.
“There were many macro imbalances and it would seem that the solution or the person responsible for all this is trade, because in the end these are global effects. We need, and from UNCTAD and the WTO as well, to put everything in its place, to carry out the analysis of what needs to be done and really put the trade issue, investment, but also the other policies, the public policies that have to do with the fiscal part, the financial part, transport, education, health (…) trade can be a very important development instrument, but countries have to be on board of that agenda, (however) countries do not have trade in their priorities,” he says.
At the Public Forum, the WTO itself sought to reinforce the message of the benefits that trade has generated for countries’ economies and the need to develop greater integration with the help of this organization. “Of course, the convergence that we saw with incomes between rich countries and poor countries was altered by the pandemic. And it took some parts of the world backwards,” WTO Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told reporters this week.
Luz María de la Mora, former Undersecretary of Foreign Trade at the Ministry of Economy in Mexico, stresses that UNCTAD’s current work is to strengthen multilateralism and generate dialogue , “so that countries can have better information, to be able to sit down and talk. Because without information, if you don’t have really good analysis, good data, good evidence, then you start with a false diagnosis. And right now there are a lot of myths.”
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