The global economic crisis and emerging protectionism: are we heading for a new world order?

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The global economic crisis and emerging protectionism: are we heading for a new world order?

The financial crisis which began in the US and spread to many markets across the globe has added to and complicated the cocktail of challenges blocking the way to a successful conclusion of the Doha round of multilateral trade negotiations.

The WTO has predicted a reduction of world exports to the tune of about 9% in volume terms - the biggest contraction since World War II. The impact of the crisis has been quite severe in most industrialized countries and threatens to undermine efforts to lift many poor countries out of poverty. Whilst the new US administration’s fiscal policies and those of the G7 economies may live up to their billing and turn the tide, the danger that those policies will build up protectionist coalitions is growing. Meanwhile, developing countries will experience reduced official development assistance, reduced remittances, and lower revenues from their exports. Multilateral solutions through the leadership of the G20 (a group consisting of the world’s biggest economies) are being sought in order to deal with the crisis; however their efficacy and that of multilateral coordination remains in doubt.

Dr. Sally is co-Director of the European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE), an international economic policy think tank based in Brussels. He is a Senior Research Associate at the South African Institute of International Affairs in Johannesburg. He has taught at the London School of Economics since 1993. He has been a Visiting Professor at the Institut D'Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po) in Paris, Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, a Visiting Fellow at the University of Hong Kong, and Director, Trade Policy, at the Commonwealth Business Council in London. He is on the Academic Advisory Council of the Institute of Economic Affairs in London, and on the Advisory Board of the Cato Centre for Trade Policy Studies in Washington DC. Dr. Sally's research focuses on trade policy in Asia, the WTO and preferential trade agreements. He lectures and consults for governments, business and international organisations, and comments regularly on international economic policy issues in the media. A list of his recent publications is available at: http://www.ecipe.org/people/razeen-sally

Click [here] to download the workshop report.

The event is scheduled as follows:

Programme*

Chair: Peter Draper, SAIIA

10h00 – 10h10 Opening and welcome

10h10 - 10h40 The WTO and the financial crisis [download presentation]

Dr Razeen Sally, Director, ECIPE

10h40 – 11h30 Panel Discussion:

Max Sisulu, Chair of the Economic Transformation Committee,
ANC [to be confirmed].
Rudi Dicks, Executive Director, NALEDI.
Dawie Roodt, Economist, Efficient Group.
Randall Williams, Chief Director: Multilateral Trade Negotiations,
the dti.