WTO Director-General Azevêdo: Trade can help energize economic recovery

At the B20 Summit in Berlin today, World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Roberto Azevêdo gave a speech titled ‘Making Trade Work for All: Trade Liberalisation and Inclusiveness’. Azevêdo stressed that although he believes that trade and the global trading system are essential for jobs, growth, development, prosperity as well as peace, the trading system is at a critical juncture.

On one hand, the WTO has never been more important for managing an increasingly interconnected global economy; on the other, the system faces real structural challenges, partly because the economy of today is very different from when the WTO officially commenced in 1995.

Trade is often named as the culprit for job losses, which leads to anti-trade and anti-globalisation rhetoric. But raising barriers would not bring the jobs back, said Azevêdo. It is, however, the responsibility of the WTO to ensure that more is done to spread the benefits of trade.

Azevêdo’s full speech can be found here.

Pascal Lamy, former Director-General of the WTO, recently gave an interview at Asia House, Expect a hard Brexit and a soft Trump.