NFTC and Other Key Stakeholders Urge Negotiators to Achieve Successful, Commercially Meaningful Outcome
Washington DC – The National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) today joined 36 other leading business organizations from 19 developed and developing economies in a joint statement calling on world leaders and World Trade Organization (WTO) members to exert needed leadership to achieve a balanced and commercially meaningful outcome to the Doha Round of WTO negotiations.
“The international business community stands firmly behind achieving a timely, balanced and ambitious conclusion to the Doha Round. In the ‘Call to Leadership’ we are releasing today, business groups from 19 developed and developing economies urge our respective national leaders to demonstrate political leadership on the Doha Round by making the tough decisions necessary for success,” said Mary Irace, NFTC Vice President of Trade & Export Finance. “Concluding the Doha Round with a commercially meaningful result will strengthen the multilateral rules-based trading system and serve as a powerful engine of global economic growth and development.”
Describing the Doha Round as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity of enormous promise and relevance,” the international business community representatives assert that the time for final action is now.
“While each of our organizations has politically sensitive issues and economic concerns at home, we stand united in our support for concluding an ambitious and balanced outcome to the Doha Round centered on providing more open, transparent and predictable conditions for trade in agriculture, industrial goods and services, and we recognize that both developed and advanced developing nations must contribute meaningfully toward a successful conclusion,” read the statement.
In addition, the business groups highlight the Chairmen’s texts on agriculture and industrial goods as a major step forward in the negotiations. The NFTC welcomes the recognition that refinement of these texts, and an accompanying text on services, should serve as the basis for the final negotiations. It will also be important to ensure good agreements on trade facilitation and rules as part of the final outcome.
For a copy of the statement, please click here.
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Advancing Global Commerce for Over 90 Years
The National Foreign Trade Council (www.nftc.org) is a leading business organization advocating an open, rules-based global trading system. Founded in 1914 by a broad-based group of American companies, the NFTC now serves hundreds of member companies through its offices in Washington and New York.
