WTO chief urges stronger foundations for global trade

BLED, SLOVANIA: Global trade must be placed on a firmer foundation, Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said on Monday at the Bled Strategic Forum.

Speaking on a panel addressing European economic competitiveness, she warned that although the global trading system has a stable core, it exists in an unstable equilibrium. “The current disruptions of the global trade system contain an opportunity for countries to put global trade on a firmer footing for the years and decades ahead,” she said.

Okonjo-Iweala urged the European Union to lead on multilateral trade reform, noting that the WTO’s framework benefits people worldwide by generating better jobs. European Commissioner for International Partnerships Jozef Síkela told the same panel that the EU’s trade, production and investment ties with third countries will be crucial to the bloc’s future growth. Slovenia’s State Secretary for the Economy, Matevž Frangež, backed calls to strengthen the WTO’s core principles and described the recently concluded EU-US trade deal as unfair and unbalanced.

Earlier on Monday, the forum launched Future 500, a new platform to identify 500 promising scale-up companies in Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. Led by the Atlantic Council and the Bled School of Management, the programme will connect selected firms with growth capital and strategic partners to enhance their global visibility and credibility.

Now in its 20th year and held under the theme “A Runaway World”, the Bled Strategic Forum was established in 2006 by Slovenia’s Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs and the Centre for European Perspective. It has become the country’s premier foreign policy and economic conference, drawing heads of state, policymakers, academics and business leaders to debate Europe’s role in a rapidly changing global order.

By RSS/Xinhua