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Add to Preferred SourcesInternational trade and the WTO have a crucial role to play in helping to accelerate progress in achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), highlights a WTO publication launched at the Public Forum on 3 October 2018.
In his opening remarks, Director-General Roberto Azevêdo stressed the need to strengthen the multilateral trading system to support efforts to achieve the SDGs and to underpin growth and development in the poorest countries.
Combined with the right financing and capacity-building assistance, trade is a vital catalyst for development. This is demonstrated by the experience of recent decades, as greater trade cooperation has helped to transform the welfare and living standards of so many people around the world.
Developing countries’ share of global trade has jumped from 28 to 46 percent over the last 20 years. In turn, this progress helped to lift one billion people out of poverty, and it delivered on the Millennium Development Goals. We must ensure that trade continues to play this positive role.
The report highlights the contribution that trade can make in meeting the SDGs. It emphasizes the importance of mainstreaming trade into national policies to expand economic opportunities. And it looks at the role that international cooperation and the multilateral trading system can play in these efforts.
The report also puts forward ten recommendations which would help to ensure that international trade contributes to accelerating progress in achieving the SDGs. These range from continuing to reduce trade costs, to enhancing trade in services.
Read and download the report Mainstreaming trade to attain the SDGs.
Original source: WTO
Published on 3 October 2018