TRADE-LATAM: SELA Statement Demands Freer World Market

By Humberto Márquez Reprint | | Print |

Humberto Marquez

CARACAS, Jan 18 1996 (IPS) - The Latin American Economic System (SELA) countries, meeting in Caracas Thursday, revealed their newly minted declaration for the United Nations Trade and Development (UNCTAD) conference in South Africa in April.

Latin America and the Caribbean will demand that the economies be liberalised only under the condition that there is increasingly free trade worldwide.

“The developing countries have made unprecedented efforts towards liberalisation and integration in the international economy,” read the Caracas declaration, while regional nations “face the main challenge of accelerating economic growth and sustainable development,” it added.

The document said that trade “is a fundamental tool for world development and job creation. The industrialised countries must meet their commitments to liberalisation and trade, and avoid protectionism and unilateralism.”

The declaration was unanimously adopted by the 27 SELA member states in Caracas.

UNCTAD Secretary General Rubens Ricupero told the meeting the 9th Conference would concentrate on economic globalisation and liberalisation offering a chance to fully understand the issues.

“Globalisation and the creation of a market which can be confused with the planet itself, is like the end of a journey which started 500 years ago with the Portuguese sailors and the discovery of America,” said Ricupero.

He swiftly followed this statement with the disclaimer “none of what happens is unequivocally positive or negative. With globalisation, competition becomes harder and the risk of marginalisation reaches developing and industrialised countries alike.”

“This is what we can read into the recent strikes in France, for instance: everyone is afraid of an uncertain future, which in immediate terms offers us difficult challenges,” he said.

“Even now, the atmosphere in Europe is hardly euphoric, with four million unemployed in Germany and downward revisions of the predicted growth twice a year in the industrialised countries.”

He warned that while the developing countries should not doubt the importance of globalisation, they should not adopt it as dogma either.

Ricupero said the UNCTAD role must be to help the developing nations with growth and integration to currents in world trade.

Even the most advanced developing countries need help to maintain and increase their degree of integration, as this is often weak on access to markets, finances and technology.

The 48 poorest countries – 33 of which are in Africa – have little to offer the world market, normally offering only one or two raw material exports and poorly trained populations.

The 9th Conference will particularly aim to help people understand the global economy, making trade more efficient through computer programmes, and attracting quality investments to the developing nations.

These countries also need more technical cooperation and programmes to make their businesses more competitive, and the 28 countries not yet in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) must be pressed to join up.

SELA leader Carlos Moneta said UNCTAD is the only body which can possibly “suggest a comprehensive view of development.”

He said the region also needed help with its own conception of development.

Development must be based on “integration and social equity, the only way to guarantee governability,” he said, fired by sustainable economic growth and increasing levels of competivity.

The Caracas declaration called for “a stable international economic environment, open markets and better support for funding,” and the flow of technology to the developing countries.

It stressed the need for “articulation between the economic and social, through the simultaneous execution of human development and economic development policies, the rational use of natural resources, environmental preservation and governability.”

The SELA countries said that in trade, the first aim must be to fulfil the commitments with the WTO, asking UNCTAD to study the issues of investment, competivity and environment to strengthen the negotiating position of the developing countries.

The declaration recommended adopting measures to support small and medium sized business – great employment generators – with UNCTAD becoming a intergovernmental negotiation forum.

This body must maintain its basic functions of analysis, negotiation and technical cooperation with the north, encouraging sustainable growth and the solution of social problems worldwide, it said.

Ricupero summed up the essential importance of the organisation, saying that unlike the WTO, the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund, “UNCTAD has a more general role. We look for the woods while the others concentrate on the trees.”