Brussels, 10/02/2003 (Agence Europe) - In a concern to show that the new EU strategy for making trade work for the development of poor countries is not just a vague idea, Pascal Lamy, Trade Commissioner, and Poul Nielson, Development Commissioner, presented, on Monday during a press meeting, a Commission publication on the "success stories" in this respect.
The brochure, entitled "Making trade work for development: from theory to practice", is a catalogue of examples of projects financed by the Union to serve this aim. Examples range from reactivation of the vanilla sector in Madagascar to the preparation by Vietnam for accession to the WTO, and also includes improved hygiene conditions in the fisheries sector in Cape Verde to meet European standards, aid to increasing and diversifying exports from Zambia and aid to small exporting firms in Peru. Through this selection of real-life examples as opposed to just words (according to the Commission's terms in the preface to the brochure), the two Commissioners demonstrated through well chosen examples that their faith in the virtues of support to trade and strengthened capacities was well founded for helping developing countries integrate the global economy.
"The Conferences in Doha, Monterrey and Johannesburg proclaimed the importance of the link between trade and development. Both are inextricably connected. Poul Nielson and myself are working for trade policy to be linked more to development concerns, and development policy more marked by trade concerns. We also wish to verify the state of things, through concrete cases", Pascal Lamy said. In his view, the eleven examples selected show "how we have implemented export flows from development countries where there were none before". "We want to go still further", he said, announcing the forthcoming setting in place, within the Commission (DG Trade), of a Help Desk for helping exporters of developing countries overcome the administrative, regulatory or technical difficulties they meet when exporting towards the Union.
Pascal Lamy explained that the Help Desk would be operational during 2003 for providing assistance on the conditions required for exporting towards the Union, assistance on norms and on human and plant health standards.
Recalling that the link between trade and development is one of the six priorities of the Union under development policy, Poul Nielson noted that the establishment of this priority had been a wise choice for the conferences of Doha, Monterrey and Johannesburg, and that the Commission's communication of 2002 on this subject aimed to make the agenda move forward.
Over the period 1996-2000, 117 trade projects were accomplished for the sum of EUR 640 million. In the knowledge that it is difficult to draw a clear line between the purely trade projects and the trade-related projects, Commissioner Nielson (with reference to a far wider definition) gave as 230 the number of trade assistance projects under way in developing countries, for a total of EUR 1.6 billion.
The less advanced countries and the poorer countries do not receive sufficient aid via access to our markets, Poul Nielson said, adding that these countries must be helped to increase their production and export capacities.
(The Commission's brochure may be consulted on the Internet at: http: //europa.eu.int/comm/ trade/pdf/comdev or http: //europa.eu.int/comm/development/secto/trade_en.htm).