Brussels, 17/11/20114 (Agence Europe) - In the action plan for growth they adopted in Brisbane on Sunday 16 November, the G20 leaders reiterated their commitment to free trade. In a chapter on trade, the G20 congratulates itself on the measures taken by all of its member countries to facilitate trade, and those taken by certain members to reduce the obstacles to the trade in services, to include SMEs in the global economy, or to reduce non-tariff barriers and conclude good bilateral agreements to open up markets. “Resisting protectionism remains a core G20 commitment”, the document stresses. The G20 calls on the WTO, the OECD and UNCTAD to continue their protectionism monitoring exercise. Their latest report showed, however, that 215 new measures have been adopted since November 2013 (overall +12%) and that in total, the number of restrictive measures has continued to rise since the beginning of the crisis in 2008, and just 282 of the 1,244 restrictive measures registered since then have been abolished. The G20 leaders also welcomed the “breakthrough” at the WTO, facilitated by the recent compromise between the United States and India on Indian public stockholding for food security purposes, which paves the way for the forthcoming adoption of the incrementing protocol of the trade facilitation agreement concluded at the Bali conference in late 2013. In Brisbane, the G20 pledged to implement all elements of the Bali package and “swiftly” define a post-Bali agenda. “If we can formalise both breakthroughs in Geneva in the next few weeks, then 2014 will have been a very good year indeed for the WTO and for multilateralism”, said the head of the WTO, Roberto Azevedo, who also attended the Brisbane summit. The other breakthrough referred to is a recent compromise between China and the United States on the revision of the WTO information technology agreement (ITA). (EH)