Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 13 • Number 26 • 15th July 2009

Lamy Presents Protectionism Report, Warns against ‘Excessive Optimism’

Discuss this articleShare your views with other visitors, and read what they have to say

WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy officially presented a report on Members’ new trade-restricting measures at a meeting of the Trade Policy Review Body on Monday.

Lamy said that the report, which is the third in a series of such updates, “presents a mixed picture” of new trade policy developments. On one hand, there has been ‘further slippage’ toward protectionism since the last such review was released in March, Lamy said. But there has also been “some signs of improvement” as governments begin dismantling trade restrictions that were enacted in response to the onset of the economic crisis last year (see Bridges Weekly, 8 July 2009, http://ictsd.net/i/news/bridgesweekly/50305/).

Lamy opened the meeting on Monday with words of warning on the state of the global economy.

“I would caution against excessive optimism,” Lamy told delegates. “Although financial markets are showing signs of stabilising, the crisis is far from over, in particular in many developing countries that are only now starting to feel its full force on their trade and economic growth.”

The director-general has long maintained that “protectionism is not the answer,” and that the free flow of international commerce will be one of the keys to global economic recovery.

Responding to Lamy’s opening comments, most Members said they were satisfied with the report, and were happy to be working with the secretariat in providing the information necessary for its production. Bolivia, however, raised a dissenting opinion; the country reiterated its previous claim that the global trade body lacks an appropriate mandate to produce such reports. Other Members said that the report had mis-categorised some of their trade policies.

Several delegations responded directly to the report’s prediction that anti-dumping activity - one of the ways that the WTO allows its Members to take remedial action against imports that are hurting their home economies - will become more frequent as the global economy continues to struggle.

The Friends of the Anti-dumping Negotiations group said that such an increase was to be expected and urged members to abide by WTO disciplines.

The US, however, cautioned against the report’s ‘dire predictions’ of Members’ use of trade remedies, and pointed out that anti-dumping levels will most likely remain below historic peaks, even with significant increases.

At the close of the meeting, Lamy told delegates that he intends to present a similar analysis of recent protectionist trends to G20 heads of state at their summit in Pittsburgh in September.

The secretariat is expected to produce an additional report in October that will provide an overview of all of the trade-restricting measures that have been put in place since the onset of the global economic crisis last year. That report will inform the work and discussions of the trade ministers who will meet from November 30 to December 2 in Geneva at the organisation’s seventh full ministerial conference.

Additional information

To download a copy of the July protectionism report, please click here: http://ictsd.net/downloads/2009/07/tpr-report.pdf

To read the full text of Lamy’s address to the Trade Policy Review Board on 13 July, please see: http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news09_e/tpr_13jul09_e.htm

ICTSD reporting.