El Director Ejecutivo del Centro del Sur formuló une declaración ante la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas el 25 de marzo último y se refirió a los efectos de la crisis económica en los países en desarrollo. Asimismo realizó propuestas de cambios al orden económico y financiero internacional.

South Centre Analytical Note - July 2002

SUMMARY (excerpt)

This paper provides a general background to the issues of Trade, Debt, and Finance, and what role they may have in future World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations envisioned through the Working Group on Trade, Debt, and Finance (WGTDF). Its aim is to assist developing countries in effective participation in the work programme of the WGTDF, by underscoring the main issues and objectives, and offering suggestions for future work.

It considers the context of the interrelationship of these three issues, noting the condition of the world economic system as run by the Bretton Woods institutions (IMF and World Bank) and the WTO. Since a Northern, neoliberal economic perspective permeates these institutions, developed country interests continue to take centre stage in the negotiating and decision-making processes. It is these interests which set the agenda on development and the relationship between trade, debt, and finance issues. Despite the inherent flaws in these bodies, efforts to reform policies and institutions recently have been unsuccessful. An example is the UN Conference on Financing for Development (FfD) held in Monterrey earlier this year.

The paper then proceeds to examine how these institutional and systemic flaws are reflected in global trade and finance, as well as through the burden of debt faced by developing countries. Trade issues include the nearly acrossthe- board dependence on the export of primary commodities. This is largely responsible for the vulnerability of developing countries’ economies to price swings (albeit generally on a downward trend) and their continued existence at the bottom (if even included) of any chains of production, and subsequently, for their poor trade performance. Additional trade issues include the persistence in usage of tariffs and non-tariff barriers to trade by developed countries.

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