UAE calls on WTO members to remove trade barriers

Geneva - December 19, 2011 (WAM) - The UAE firmly believes that World Trade Organization member states must continue removing obstacles to trade to maintain the function of global commerce as an engine of growth, of jobs, of development, and of poverty reduction, Sheikha Lubna Bint Khalid Al Qasimi, Minister of Foreign Trade, told the WTO's 8th Ministerial Conference here. Delivering the UAE address, Sheikha Lubna drew attention of the highest WTO's gathering to the UAE initiative to liberalize raw materials and aluminium sectors and call upon your support to adopt this initiative. ''Given the urgency of the global challenges we are facing, our meeting represents an issue of utmost importance. Circumstances are always changing, so it is crucial that institutions like the WTO continue to adapt to new realities. ''Keeping in mind that the WTO provides a contractual framework within which governments can open their economies to international competition through trade on the basis of mutual gain, fairness and predictability, governments are committed to providing their trading partners with information on their trade policies through periodic notifications,'' the UAE minister noted. ''The UAE had gone further than its WTO commitments by providing a voluntary trade policy review in 2010. The transparency embodied by notifications is central to the WTO's mission of providing its members with as much certainty as possible. According to her, this is a key issue that governments must address if they hope to continue to capitalize, as in the past, from effective institutional, legal and political arrangements that have helped millions of people around the world benefit from trade and emerge from poverty. Nations are constantly being tested in defining and implementing common strategies in response to the global challenges they encounter. ''In this context, the UAE is particularly concerned about the multiplication of protectionism measures facing its exportations, so that represent a serious obstacle to its economic competitiveness. A core challenge of our time, then, is to manage change in a manner that avoids conflict. The multilateral trading system of the future, she stressed, is what the members of the WTO make it to be. Accordingly, the UAE firmly believes that we must continue removing obstacles to trade to maintain the function of global commerce as an engine of growth, of jobs, of development, and of poverty reduction. In this regard, I kindly draw your attention to the UAE initiative to liberalize raw materials and aluminium sectors and call upon your support to adopt this initiative. Moreover, she added, the international trading system will have to take better account of global value chains moving forward. Geographical fragmentation is leading to a structural change in international trade, shifting from the old theory of "trade in goods" to a new "trade in tasks" or "Made in the World" paradigm. Old concepts such as "country of origin" or "resident versus non-resident" are losing some of their analytical relevance in international economics, particularly when measuring bilateral trade balances. ''More broadly, we will also need to change our negotiating mentality. We should adopt a more integrated approach to trade obstacles where the borders between goods and services become more permeable; where tariff and non-tariff measures are viewed in an integrated way, where the linkages between trade, investment, competition, competitiveness and sustainability are strengthened,'' she maintained. ''The long-term fate of the multilateral trading system will rely on our ability to effectively and cooperatively tackle its major barriers and issues. One of the challenges we must prioritize is the delivery of the objectives of the Doha Round. For its part, the UAE is fully determined to push ahead in order to successfully conclude the Round. ''We believe that the question is not whether the Doha Round is dead or alive. The question is rather whether WTO members remain committed to the objectives enshrined in the Doha Agenda and, more broadly, in the foundations of the organization itself. My country, the UAE, calls on all WTO Members to facilitate the accession process for Developing Countries, particularly for Arab countries and to make concrete steps to generate trust in the ability of the WTO family to move from the concept of multilateral trade keeping to the concept of Multilateral trade enforcing,'' Sheikha Lubna concluded . In parallel to the Plenary Session, three working sessions took place with the following themes: "Importance of the Multilateral Trading System and the WTO", "Trade and Development" and "Doha Development Agenda". - Emirates News Agency, WAM