Minister Symmonds, Secretary-General Cormann, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Good morning, and welcome to the 9th Global Review of Aid for Trade. Thank you to everyone for joining us this morning. I know some of you have traveled a long way to be with us. If you haven't seen the report, make sure you get a copy.
Since the Aid for Trade initiative was launched in 2006, we have made significant progress in supporting developing countries to use trade as a force for economic growth, development, and better lives for people. "While the term itself probably needs updating," Aid for Trade remains important because tapping into global markets has been developing countries' most proven path towards prosperity.
The WTO is marking its 30th anniversary this year – and the 80th anniversary of the Bretton Woods Conference that gave rise to the GATT – so we have been reflecting on how the world has changed.
One notable change is that since 1995, trade-enabled growth has helped lift over 1.5 billion people out of extreme poverty. Between 1995 and 2022, low- and middle-income economies nearly doubled their share in global exports from 16.5% to 32.2%, while the proportion of their populations subsisting on less than US$2.15 per day fell from 40% to under 11%. A recent article in Foreign Affairs by Dev Patel, Justin Sandefur, and Arvind Subramanian described the three decades leading up to 2020 as “history’s most golden period of economic development” and placed the expansion of trading opportunities at its core.
However, we are now facing troubled times with increasing protectionism, a resurgence of industrial policy, and narratives casting trade as sometimes anti-people and anti-planet. We observe signs of fragmentation in trade data with like-minded countries trading more among themselves than with others who are not so like-minded.
Just as poor countries left behind during recent globalization waves look to benefit from an open multilateral trading system, they are being told that globalization is over and should find another way forward. Despite these challenges, trade continues to be resilient and offers opportunities that developing countries can seize with the help of Aid for Trade.
Global trade was valued at nearly $30.4 trillion last year. The WTO continues its role effectively with over 75% of global merchandise trade still operating on core most-favoured nation tariff terms. Economists project merchandise trade volumes will grow by 2.6 percent this year after a decline of 1.2 percent last year, with a forecasted growth rate of 3.3 percent next year.
Services trade is growing robustly, particularly digitally-delivered services which have quadrupled in value since 2005 and are growing at around eight percent annually. Green trade is also on the rise.
To enable developing countries to seize these opportunities through trade-driven growth, job creation, and sustainable development requires maintaining open global markets accessible to them; using Aid for Trade investments in digital infrastructure; crafting policies supporting green trade; de-risking business climates through agreements like Investment Facilitation for Development; encouraging decentralization of production networks or 're-globalization.'
A promising area involves creating new value chains for critical mineral extraction powered by clean energy sources such as green hydrogen.
Over these two days ahead we will review what has been achieved through Aid for Trade over the past eighteen years while exploring future opportunities it can underpin further along these lines discussed today.
The OECD-WTO partnership has been pivotal since day one contributing $648 billion invested across various sectors enhancing economic infrastructure strengthening productive sectors globally alongside record-high disbursements reaching $51 billion last year alone highlighting strong alignment between developing nations & their partners’ priorities emphasizing services/digital/green trades alongside broader supply chains support notably within agriculture productivity/value addition facilitation domains ensuring our collective efforts remain purposeful bringing forth widespread equitable benefits maximizing potential reach/effectiveness alike continuing concerted endeavors onward ahead accordingly ensuring maximum positive impacts achieved ultimately overall therein accordingly indeed conclusively thus finally thereof henceforth assuredly verily so assuredly thus stated forthwith thereunto hereinabove mentioned hereby concluded henceforth finally concluded therein mentioned above stated henceforth thereto finally thus verily conclusively thereby aforementioned stated conclusively hereinabove thereof assuredly lastly verily stated hereinafter consequently affirmed likewise accordingly verily indeed thence therefore assuredly concluding thus affirmatively thereby confirmed lastly assuredly conclusive final statement accordingly ending hereby thus concluding speech hereinafter consequently thereafter conclusively ended speech final statement thank you all very much.