WTO Director promises “chaos” without multilateral system
Keystone-SDA
The head of the World Trade Organization (WTO) has warned of “chaos” if the global trading system were to fall apart. But keeping things as they are is not an option, WTO Director General Ngozi Okonjo‑Iweala said on Wednesday in Geneva.
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“If the WTO were to vanish, countries could simply do as they pleased,” Okonjo‑Iweala told UN‑accredited correspondents in Geneva. She pointed to the protectionist spiral of the 1930s as a warning. “No one wants to see that bad film again,” she said.
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Okonjo‑Iweala avoided speculating about the WTO’s chances of survival if talks fail, a subject the facilitator of the negotiations, Ambassador Petter Olberg, had touched on. “What we do know,” she said, “is that the organisation needs reform,” particularly to keep pace with changes driven by new technologies.
Translated from French by AI/sp
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