WTO calls for efforts to fight trade barriers

dubai — A new global push to strengthen economic cooperation, to liberalise trade and investment and to resist protectionism is indispensable to reinvigorating global growth, Yonov Frederick Agah, deputy director-general, World Trade Organisation (WTO), said on Monday.

Stressing the need for advancing development and restoring confidence in the international economic system, the WTO official said no issue is more urgent today than reviving global economic cooperation, liberalisation and growth.

Addressing the 8th Annual Investment Meeting at the Dubai World Trade Centre, Agah said trade and investment are not the only drivers of global growth but they are necessary ones — indispensable to expanding development, fuelling innovation, generating jobs and achieving the 2030 sustainable development goals.

“Signs of rising trade tensions are not only a cause but also a symptom of a global economy that has largely stopped opening and integrating in recent years — holding back growth when it is most needed to secure a prosperous and peaceful world,” the WTO officials said.

Since the 2008 financial crisis — and probably earlier — a slowdown in trade liberalisation, an uptick in protectionism and the risk of further reversals have been a drag on trade, investment and growth, Agah said.

— issacjohn@khaleejtimes.com