WTO urges easing trade policy for tsunami-hit countries
WTO urges easing trade policy for tsunami-hit countries
Agence France-Presse, Geneva
The World Trade Organization (WTO) on Thursday urged its member states to consider opening up their markets to imports from countries hit by the deadly tsunami in the Indian Ocean last month
The Geneva-based WTO said its Director General, Supachai Panitchpakdi, wrote to the 148 trading nations to ask them to think "deeply and expeditiously" about ways in which they could adapt their trade policy.
"Obvious possible areas which occur to me and no doubt others will be market access and some restraint in use of trade remedies," Supachai said in the letter.
The global trade chief comes from Thailand, one of the countries affected when tidal waves crashed into coastal areas around the Indian Ocean on Dec. 26, causing huge devastation and killing at least 163,000 people.
Supachai also said trading nations could help in the longer term by pressing ahead with global trade talks, which are primarily meant to help developing nations by lifting barriers in new trade areas such as agriculture.
"Although we are not involved in humanitarian assistance or disaster relief, clearly we can make a major contribution to the economies of the affected countries (and others) by pressing on with and concluding the Doha Development Agenda as soon as possible," he wrote.
Sri Lanka, one of the hardest hit countries, is trying to secure concessions from the United States and the European Union to help its clothing exports following the tsunami.
Sri Lanka's ambassador in Geneva, Gomi Senadhire, told AFP that his government would be writing to the EU's Commission to ask it to lift customs duties on clothing from the country for about three months.
"We are also in the process of appealing to the U.S.," he added.
"We need resources to rebuild our economy. What is better than trade?" Senadhire said.
Although Sri Lanka's textiles industry had not been directly affected by the catastrophe, the tourism industry had been widely devastated and the country's economy needed a boost, he explained.
On top of a death toll of more than 30,000 in Sri Lanka, the tsunami caused an estimated US$3 billion of damage, according to authorities. In 2003, Sri Lankan companies paid nearly $220 million in customs duties in the United States.