Globalisation has lifted millions out of poverty and had many positive effects, but it has a dark side and free trade does not always mean economic growth, World Trade Organisation head Pascal Lamy said on Wednesday.
Speaking ahead of an eleventh-hour effort to rescue global trade talks, Lamy told a forum in Beijing: "The speed of globalisation is affecting our social fabric in a much harsher way than in previous stages of globalisation."
It was the second such warning in as many days. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said on Tuesday governments needed to address public concern over jobs and pay in a world being rapidly transformed by technology, cheap transport and communications and the rise of vast pools of cheap labour.
"If globalisation has benefited some individuals, it has also weakened the position of many others, in particular the weakest and poorest among us, whether in developed or developing countries," Lamy said.
"Hence, one of the most important challenges of our generation is to ensure that the benefits of globalisation are more fairly and widely shared, and in particular that they reach more people in developing countries," he added.
WTO and other global meetings to discuss loosening trade restrictions have prompted angry clashes with protesters who say globalisation and free trade do little for the poorest of the poor and favour only rich nations.
Lamy has warned that without a breakthrough very soon, the Doha round of global trade talks could be put on hold for several years. He suspended negotiations last July after major trading powers again failed to agree on how far to cut farm subsidies and tariffs.
Trade representatives from the European Union, the United States, Brazil and India are meeting in Potsdam, near Berlin, this week to try to break the deadlock in the Doha round, named after the city where it was launched in 2001.
The WTO chief said in Beijing that governments must put sound macroeconomic policies in place, build the right infrastructure and relax domestic markets to better leverage freer trade.
He said the Doha round must be concluded, as it is crucial to ensuring poverty alleviation in developing countries. "Concluding it is understandably difficult, namely because the policies of trade have changed. Public opinion has become more anxious about the effects of globalisation," Lamy said.
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