|
|
| |
| |
Editorial
11/2005 |
|
India, for example
India is a model case of dogmatic obsessions in the trade debate. This emerging economy has seen prosperity grow since its liberalisation drive of the early 1990s. In a spectacular manner, the view that free trade necessarily harms poor nations proved wrong on the subcontinent of one billion people. Nonetheless, this view is still popular – not only in the country of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, but also among globalisation critics the world over.
At the same time, it is equally evident that India’s industrialisation did not come about thanks to open borders. There were more complex reasons for the success of the structural adjustment policies that Manmohan Singh – Finance Minister then and Prime Minister now – initiated one and a half decades ago under the pressure of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. In India, many of the prerequisites for gainful world market integration were already in place. There were competent engineers, capable entrepreneurs, an operational stock market, skilled labour and so on. This potential had been established long since and should have been taken advantage of much earlier. Other emerging market nations in Asia systematically used trade protection to become competitive internationally. They advanced sooner and faster than India.
The images of trade being either a fundamental evil or a miraculous cure-all are equally misleading. It is just as absurd to consider the World Trade Organisation (WTO) a wicked agent of business liberalism, as it is to maintain that it benefits everyone involved. Since an equitable world order will surely depend on rules binding all participants, however, the multilateral WTO is indispensable simply for its assignment of creating and enforcing a just trade regime.
Unfortunately, however, the multilateral system does not necessarily live up to this challenge. Poor countries’ hopes of access to prospering markets (for agricultural products, for example) have been dashed time and again. Two ministerial conferences have collapsed in the WTO’s short history – in Seattle in 1999 and Cancún in 2003. In this series, the summit in Qatar’s capital city Doha was the exception. Shortly after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, consensus was the order of the day. Indeed, trade ministers managed to come up with language that at least made a new round of talks possible.
Depressingly, however, the USA and EU did not seize the chance of the moment. They should have committed themselves to global fairness and eased the lot of weaker economies with generous offers. Instead, what followed Doha was a standstill, the flop of Cancún and precious little progress since.
The success of the next summit in Hong Kong in December will not only depend on rich countries. In Cancún at the latest, it became evident that large emerging economies can make the difference. Apart from India, these are Brazil, China, South Africa and other countries whose governments have long since recognised the opportunities of world trade. And yet they still recall what it took to prepare for global competition.
If these governments act responsibly, they will use their knowledge to broker sustainable compromise. Naturally, they will themselves be tempted to emphasise their particular interests. After all, bitter poverty still shapes many of their peoples’ lives. Nevertheless, the fact that high growth rates normally help governments to think long term und act accordingly might enable these leaders to assume constructive roles in Hong Kong.
Dr. Hans Dembowski
Editor in Chief of D+C Development and Cooperation/E+Z Entwicklung und Zusammenarbeit
euz.editor@fsd.de
|
|
|
