9th Global Review of Aid for Trade : Trade for all — taking stock (Opening session)

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 flown 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 come a long way 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 matters 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 looking back at how the world has changed.

1. One of the best changes is that since 1995, trade-enabled growth has helped lift over 1.5 billion people out of extreme poverty.
2. Between 1995 and 2022, low- and middle-income economies nearly doubled their share in global exports from 16.5% to 32.2% - and the share of their populations subsisting on less than US$2.15 per day fell from 40% to under 11%.
3. A recent article in Foreign Affairs by Dev Patel, Justin Sandefur, and Arvind Subramanian called the three decades leading up to 2020 “history’s most golden period of economic development” – and placed the expansion of trading opportunities at the heart of it.

But now we are in troubled times. We see increasing protectionism, the return of industrial policy, and the shaping of a narrative about trade that casts it sometimes as anti-people and anti-planet.

We see signs of fragmentation in the trade data, with like-minded countries beginning to trade more with each other than with others that are not so like-minded.

Just as poor countries left behind during the recent wave of globalization look to benefit from the open, predictable multilateral trading system, they are being told that globalization is over, and presumably that they should find another way to fend for themselves.

But I want to point out that amidst the challenges we face, amidst these troubled times, trade continues to be resilient, and still offers up opportunities that developing countries can and must seize. Aid for Trade remains a vital instrument to help them do just that.

Global trade was worth a near-record $30.4 trillion last year.

1. The WTO continues to do the job, with over 75% of global merchandise trade still operating on core most-favoured nation tariff terms.
2. Our economists expect merchandise trade volumes to grow by 2.6 per cent this year, after a decline of 1.2 per cent last year, and we are projecting 3.3 per cent growth next year.  
3. Services trade is growing strongly, particularly in digitally-delivered services, which have quadrupled in value since 2005 and are growing at around 8% per annum.
4. Green trade is also increasing.

The key is to provide the enabling environment for developing countries to seize these opportunities to use trade to drive growth, job creation, and sustainable development.

First, by keeping global markets open, predictable, and accessible to developing countries. I'm proud WTO members took important steps in that direction earlier this year at MC13, including long-awaited decisions on LDC graduation and special and differential treatment.

Second, we need to use Aid for Trade to connect more countries and people to international markets – especially through investment in hard and soft digital infrastructure that helps to bridge the digital divide and enable women, youth, and MSMEs to thrive in digital trade, particularly in digitally-delivered services.

Third, we must craft trade policies that support green trade, including the transfer of green technologies.

Fourth, we can help de-risk developing country business climates through agreements like the one on Investment Facilitation for Development, which commits participating members to a bureaucracy-free business-friendly investment environment.

All of these relate to a big window of opportunity to encourage and support the decentralization and de-concentration of production networks to encompass developing countries that have been on the margins of global trade – a process we call 're-globalization' at WTO. We can make supply chains both more resilient and at  the same time more inclusive through this continent.

A particularly promising area here is creating new value chains for critical mineral extraction and processing in places where those minerals are found, powered by green hydrogen and other kinds of clean energy.

Over the next two days, we will take stock of what has been achieved on Aid for Trade over the past 18 years, and even more importantly, how Aid for Trade can underpin new opportunities in the future.

The OECD and the WTO have been partners since day one of the initiative, and I would like to thank Matthias and his team for continuing the excellent cooperation. Let's also thank him for coming here straight off a flight. I'd also like to thank the other international organizations that cooperate us.

The new joint OECD-WTO Aid for Trade at a Glance report shows that since 2006, US$ 648 billion has been invested by bilateral and multilateral partners in building economic infrastructure, bolstering productive sectors and strengthening trade institutions across the developing world.  Aid for Trade disbursements in 2022 were at a record high US$ 51.1 billion.

The monitoring and evaluation exercise conducted for the report has pointed to considerable alignment between developing countries and their development partners.

The priorities that emerged are very much in keeping with the opportunities I mentioned earlier – services trade, digital trade, green trade, and broadening supply chains. There was also a lot of emphasis on support to agriculture, agricultural productivity and value addition, and to trade facilitation.

Let's use these two days to ensure that our Aid for Trade efforts remain fit for purpose, bringing more trade opportunities to as many people as possible – and doing so as effectively as possible.

Thank you all very much.