ICC launches World Trade Agenda

Monday, 19 December 2011 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

ICC last week launched the World Trade Agenda, an initiative proposing that business works together with governments to drive more effective trade talks, answering the call fromG20 leaders at the recent Summit in Cannes for new approaches to trade negotiations.

“Companies are committed to making investments and increasing trade flows, and urge G20 leaders to implement policies that will support these actions,” Carrier said. “In order to have the confidence it needs to trade and invest, business needs clear signs that governments will not resort to protectionism and that political leaders are truly committed to opening trade.”

ICC – which will begin mobilising global business with its World Trade Agenda – is urging governments attending the WTO Ministerial Conference to begin the process of reaching one or more Doha agreements using new approaches.

ICC, in a letter to G20 leaders this week, urged that trade ministers conclude global trade agreements on a pluri-lateral basis – that is to say, starting with a core group of WTO member countries – an option already provided for under WTO rules.

The Doha Round of negotiations, despite failing to reach a final agreement, has made valuable progress on a range of subjects – from “trade facilitation” measures that would reduce costs and delays at borders, to a package of measures encouraging the integration of least-developed countries into the global economy. Some of these potential gains could be harvested under more flexible rules. “This approach would restore confidence, bring down the cost of doing business around the world, and give the global economy and job creation a major uplift, all without resorting to more stimulus initiatives and increased debt,” Worms, ICC Vice-Chairman Harold McGraw III and ICC Honorary Chairman Victor K. Fung wrote in their letter to G20 heads of state.

ICC is inviting business leaders to a two-day symposium in Geneva in March 2012 to elaborate the main elements of the business World Trade Agenda. ICC will then feed these proposals into the G20 policy process ahead of the 2012 Los Cabos Summit, with the aim of strengthening the trade policy component of the G20 agenda.

Research for the ICC Open Market Index was carried out by leading trade economist Michael Finger, who developed the report for the ICC Research Foundation.

To read the letter from ICC’s Chairmanship to G20 heads of state, please see: http://www.iccwbo.org/uploadedFiles/ICC_Chairma_ship_letter_to_G20_leaders.pdf.