INTEGRATING POOR COUNTRIES IN TRADE SYSTEM BENEFITS EVERYONE

VATICAN CITY, NOV 14, 2001 (VIS) - Published yesterday was the speech given on November 12 in Doha, Qatar, by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, Holy See permanent observer to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and head of the Holy See delegation to the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the WTO in Doha. The conference ran from November 9 to 13.

"The Holy See's hope," he stated, "is that this Fourth Ministerial Conference will be - and will be remembered as - the 'development Conference' of the WTO. The integration of the poorer economies into an equitable world trade system is in the interest of all. The enhanced development of the poorer countries is a contribution to global progress, international security and peace."

"Trade liberalization," observed Archbishop Martin, "can bring great benefit to poorer countries. Too often, however, this has remained just a theoretical, indeed even an ideological affirmation. For the future, the World Trade Organization must take greater stock of exactly how trade liberalization affects the poorer countries in concrete, verifiable terms, on a country by country basis."

He highlighted "two specific trade-related questions that are of special interest to fostering human development for the poorest countries today. The first is the relationship between trade rules, and especially intellectual property rules, and health. ... The second area is that of market access for products in which the poorest countries have advantage. ... Prolonged protectionism and other trade practices which bring disproportionate benefit to wealthier sectors of the world's economies cannot be the basis for an equitable rules-based system."

The head of delegation concluded: "'The economy', Pope John Paul II reminds us, 'is only one aspect, one dimension of the whole of human activity' and 'economic liberty is only one element of human freedom'. May this Ministerial Conference be the moment in which we shape trade policies that really become a driving force for the integral development of the entire human family."

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