(DNE File photo)
The world’s economic policies should be reviewed in a way that meets citizens’ needs and political ambitions, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’s (UNCTAD) economist Mahmoud El-Khafif said in a Wednesday press conference in Cairo to launch the organisation’s Trade and Development Report 2014.
UNCTAD’s Trade and Development Report, which was launched in 1981, is issued every year to analyse current economic trends and major policy issues of international concern, in addition to stating recommendations. Chairman of Board of Directors of Al-Ahram Establishment Ahmed Al-Naggar was among the speakers along with Director of UN Information Office in Cairo Khawla Mattar.
During his presentation of the report, El-Khafif, who contributed in preparing the report, said that multilateral trade agreements recognise the “legitimate” concerns of developing countries and they are more flexible than the bilateral trade agreements.
The report advised that developing countries should “carefully” consider the loss of policy space engaging in bilateral and regional trade and investment agreements as “such agreements often come with stricter commitments in areas covered by multilateral agreements or extend to new areas, requiring policymakers to forsake the use of instruments that have proved effective in supporting industrialisation,” it said.
El-Khafif said that Egypt has more than 100 bilateral agreements, each with its own conditions and regulations, calling on the government to review them.
He also said that Egypt should not give the highest priority to increasing exports as the countries that it exports to have low economic growth, such as United States and European countries.
Subtitled “Global Governance and Policy Space for Development”, El-Khafif said that the report called for major changes in the way the global economy is governed and managed, as the world economy has still not found a sustainable growth path after six years after the 2008 great recession, however, developing countries have managed to recover it faster than developed countries as a result of increasing the domestic demand and rising commodities prices.
“With expected growth of 2.5% to 3% in 2014, the global recovery remains weak, while the policies supporting it are not only inadequate but often inconsistent,” the report argued.
The report said that economic growth will remain around 2% in North Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, adding that transition economies are expected to further dip to around 1% from an already weak performance in 2013, it said.
UNCTAD emphasised the role that proactive trade and industrial policies can play in the post-2015 development agenda and highlighted the various policies that can help achieve sustained income growth, poverty reduction and other socially desirable outcomes.
El-Khafif said that decision makers in Egypt should take the report’s recommendations into consideration “as they too are appropriate for Egypt”.
