GENEVA, Nov 22 (Reuters): Rich countries will increase their "aid for trade" to developing nations by half to around $30 billion by 2010, World Trade Organisation (WTO) Director-General Pascal Lamy said yesterday.
The increased funding is an effort to help poor countries take advantage of the opportunities from globalisation, where at present they are hampered by inadequate infrastructure or technology, he told a news conference.
He was talking after a three-day meeting attended by the heads of international financial organisations such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, as well as regional development banks, donor governments and developing countries.
"Aid for trade is about generating trade flows and making, through various capacity improvements, trade feed into growth and growth into poverty alleviation for developing countries," he said.
China, India and many Latin American countries show that trade liberalisation can be a powerful engine for economic development, helping lift millions out of poverty, said the head of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a think-tank for rich countries, Angel Gurria.
The aid for trade programme will help developing countries choose and carry out projects to foster their trade capacity and ensure that trade is built into their development strategies.
Most aid has some relevance to trade, but Lamy said the key sectors that came up again and again were infrastructure, transport, telecoms, customs facilitation, trade finance and sanitary controls of food and other products.
Rich states to boost 'aid for trade' by half: Lamy
FE Team | Published: November 23, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00
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