Brussels, 07/07/2009 (Agence Europe) - The leaders of the eight richest countries in the world (G8: Germany, Canada, US, France, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom and Russia), together with their counterparts from the five biggest emerging economies (South Africa, Brazil, China, India and Mexico) are meeting on Thursday 9 July during the G8 summit in L'Aquila in Italy (8-10 July) and will call for protectionist pressures to be resisted and the Doha Round to be rapidly concluded.
According to the final draft declaration, the G8+5 will call for multilateral negotiations for the liberalisation of world trade and the conclusion of an “ambitious, global and balanced” agreement on the basis of the programmes already accomplished on modalities for liberalising trade in agriculture, industrial products and services. There is no deadline for the discussions began in 2001 at the WTO and which have stalled since the ministerial in July 2008 in Geneva. Neither is a deadline expected to be set. G8+5 leaders will, nonetheless, give their trade ministers instructions to meet up before the third summit of the G20 on reform of the international financial architecture programmed for 24-25 September in Pittsburgh. A separate G8 declaration adopted the day before will underline the commitment of the most industrialised countries of the WTO (Russia is not involved: Ed) to rapidly conclude the Doha Round. It will not be setting a deadline for this either, to the great consternation of the Italian Head of government, Silvio Berlusconi, who declared on Monday that he hoped that the L'Aquila summit would provide a mandate to conclude multilateral talks by 2010. Meeting informally at the OECD ministerial at the end of June in Paris, the ministers for trade from the main Doha Round actors (EU, South Africa, Brazil, US, India and Japan) affirmed their commitment to conclude it by the end of 2010. The WTO Director General was delighted that the resumption in negotiations was going in the right direction and that there was little work to accomplish given that 80% of it was already on the table. In an effort to provide a boost to the negotiations, the Indian minister of trade, Anand Sharma, proposed that his country host a meeting of the main negotiators in September.
The G8 and the G8+5 are expected to criticise the fact that the economic recession is being accompanied by an increase in protectionist measures. The G8 is also expected to declare that “the markets must remain open, protectionism must be rejected and the factors likely to impact on price volatility in raw materials, including speculation, must be monitored and analysed”. It is also due to affirm the commitment of the eight world powers to reducing trade distortion and refraining from erecting new barriers to trade and investment or taking measures that do not comply with the WTO, in an effort to stimulate exports. According to the World Bank, six G8 and G20 members (Germany, US, France, Italy, the United Kingdom and Russia), as well as several big emerging economies that are also members of the G20 (Argentina, Brazil, China and India) are the countries that have erected trade barriers since the G20 meeting in London last April. In L'Aquila, leaders from the biggest developed and emerging economies are expected to issue warnings in this connection to the president of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick and his counterpart at the WTO, Pascal Lamy. On the 1 July, the WTO denounced further protectionists measures among its 153 member countries and revised its 2009 forecasts for world trade downwards (expected to fall by 10% in 2009). In its 3rd report on trade policy developments in its member countries during the global economic and financial crisis, the organisation responsible for guiding world trade will assess protectionist behaviour and the trade restrictions and policies that are creating distortion since the G20 summit in London. They will, nonetheless, be expected to announce the absence of “high intensity” protectionist measures. In its previous report last March (EUROPE 9871), the WTO commented on the significant sliding into protectionism in the first quarter of the year. It is also concerned at the impact of economic recovery plans prepared by the major global economies. The WTO also mentions the consequences of swine flu and asserted that at least 39 countries had decided on trade measures such as bans on pork meat imports from countries affected by the disease. (E.H./trans/rh)