Trade liberalisation has only just begun to benefit developing countries, says a former WTO chief
A Greenpeace demonstration marred the first day of the summit as scores of protestors toting placards and shouting slogans gathered outside the Hilton Cavalieri to demonstrate against the use of GMOs.
Speakers at the summit could barely be heard at times as the noisy protest continued outside. During the cocktail party at the end of the day, one demonstrator posing as a waiter stripped off his shirt to reveal a Greenpeace T-shirt and handcuffed himself to a railing before security forced him to leave.
Mike Moore, the former director general of the World Trade Organisation and former prime minister of New Zealand, was scathing about the demonstrators during a hard-hitting speech. He said: “In the UK, Greenpeace has five times as many members as all the political parties together. Many have the tired belief that profit is a dirty word. These global populist placards are dangerous: people before profit - what does that mean?”
Anti-globalists were missing the point, he said: “Science, commerce and culture are advancing faster than our capacity to cope, but if we reject them, we revert to witchcraft. To those who are wary of corporate power, I say pray for globalisation.” However, he added, businesses and governments could no longer indulge in dubious practices and would be held to account if they were not more socially responsible. “Money is a coward. It likes stability,” he said.
Addressing the plight of producers in developing countries, he said that the food and drink industry had an important role to play in stamping out institutional corruption in those countries and argued that subsidies and tariffs should be cut as they hampered free trade.
“The more open the society, the better,” he said, adding that it was when free trade was suspended that Marxism and fascism emerged, “both deadly and protectionist”. Liberalise trade, however, and more money would go to growers, he argued.
Citing the fact that today cotton farmers took a $0.5bn cut of a $60bn global market where 10 years ago they received $10bn of a $30bn market, he said: “This is wrong and something that people here can change. We need to live up to our own ideals on trade, corporate governance and property rights. The model is there.
“The problem is not that we’ve got too much globalisation but not enough. We ought not to lose our nerve now.”
A Greenpeace demonstration marred the first day of the summit as scores of protestors toting placards and shouting slogans gathered outside the Hilton Cavalieri to demonstrate against the use of GMOs.
Speakers at the summit could barely be heard at times as the noisy protest continued outside. During the cocktail party at the end of the day, one demonstrator posing as a waiter stripped off his shirt to reveal a Greenpeace T-shirt and handcuffed himself to a railing before security forced him to leave.
Mike Moore, the former director general of the World Trade Organisation and former prime minister of New Zealand, was scathing about the demonstrators during a hard-hitting speech. He said: “In the UK, Greenpeace has five times as many members as all the political parties together. Many have the tired belief that profit is a dirty word. These global populist placards are dangerous: people before profit - what does that mean?”
Anti-globalists were missing the point, he said: “Science, commerce and culture are advancing faster than our capacity to cope, but if we reject them, we revert to witchcraft. To those who are wary of corporate power, I say pray for globalisation.” However, he added, businesses and governments could no longer indulge in dubious practices and would be held to account if they were not more socially responsible. “Money is a coward. It likes stability,” he said.
Addressing the plight of producers in developing countries, he said that the food and drink industry had an important role to play in stamping out institutional corruption in those countries and argued that subsidies and tariffs should be cut as they hampered free trade.
“The more open the society, the better,” he said, adding that it was when free trade was suspended that Marxism and fascism emerged, “both deadly and protectionist”. Liberalise trade, however, and more money would go to growers, he argued.
Citing the fact that today cotton farmers took a $0.5bn cut of a $60bn global market where 10 years ago they received $10bn of a $30bn market, he said: “This is wrong and something that people here can change. We need to live up to our own ideals on trade, corporate governance and property rights. The model is there.
“The problem is not that we’ve got too much globalisation but not enough. We ought not to lose our nerve now.”
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