New York - British Prime Minister Tony Blair has vowed to wage a "monumental struggle" to get the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to agree to steps to open up trade with the poorest nations.
Speaking to reporters at the UN world summit in New York on Thursday, Blair said the WTO ministerial meeting in Hong Kong in December was one of a series of milestones on the way to ridding the planet of extreme poverty.
"Everyone around the world has tried to call each others' bluff on trade," said Blair, who made aid, trade and debt a focus of the Group of Eight summit that he chaired at Gleneagles in Scotland two months ago.
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"If we have a failure (in Hong Kong) it will echo around the world - and I am not prepared to have that, not without the most monumental struggle."
| 'If we have a failure in Hong Kong, it will echo around the world' |
Campaigners blame trade barriers and farm export subsidies for preventing the world's poorest countries, many in sub-Saharan Africa, from being able to pull themselves out of extreme poverty.
In his address to the UN summit on Wednesday, Blair said he regretted that nations had not gone as far as they could in committing themselves to fighting extreme poverty.
"No summit requiring unanimity from 191 nations can be more than modest," he said.
"But if we did what we have agreed on doubling aid, on opening up trade, on debt relief, on HIV/Aids and malaria, on conflict prevention so that never again would the world stand by, helpless when genocide struck - if we fulfilled our undertakings at this summit, our modesty would surprise."
Trade ministers from the 148 WTO member states are to convene in Hong Kong between December 13 and 18, with agriculture, which is of most benefit to the developing world, the expected sticking point. - Sapa-AFP
- This article was originally published on page 4 of Cape Argus on September 16, 2005
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