(IPS) feature The World Bank touted the prospect that the governments will launch a new round of global trade talks this month, saying such a move would help pull the world economy out of recession.

Nicholas Stern, the bank's chief economist, acknowledged the difficult history of trade negotiations but told IPS that, "this time, the developed countries are going with a stronger commitment than ever to produce results and open up their markets. This will get developing countries to react similarly".

Delegates from 140-plus World Trade Organisation (WTO) member states are scheduled to meet in Doha, Qatar this month to try to revive talks stalled since their 1999 meeting in Seattle, USA, ended amid tear gas in the streets and acrimony in the conference hall.

Since then, many developing countries have consistently refused to go along with plans for a new round without significant market-opening commitments from wealthy nations. Also since then, however, the global economy has sputtered to a virtual halt because of pronounced and prolonged downturns in its three main engines of finance and trade: the United States, Japan, and Europe.

In turn, developing countries have been badly gored and so, Stern said, the stage seems set for greater trade integration as countries of the North and South drop their bickering about whose trade priorities should go first.

The bank, in its 'Global Economic Prospects and the Developing Countries 2002' report released last week noted that growth in trade has undergone one of its "most severe decelerations in modern times" - from more than 13 percent last year to only one percent this year. Developing countries as a whole have are confronting a 10-percentage-point drop in demand for their exports.

"Removing barriers to trade, the topic of the WTO meeting in Doha in early November, could significantly boost the long-term prospects of developing countries, many of which are suffering from the fall-out of the Sept 11 (terrorist) attacks (on the United States) and worldwide slowdown," said the bank report.

Provide stimulus

"A reduction in world barriers to trade could accelerate growth, provide stimulus to new forms of productivity-enhancing specialisation, and lead to a more rapid pace of job creation and poverty reduction around the world," it added.

That argument might have appeal on paper but in reality, "rich countries and powerful corporations have captured a disproportionate share of the benefits of trade, leaving developing countries and poor people worse off", according to the non-governmental organisation Oxfam International.

This is because world trade rules have been developed by the rich and powerful on the basis of their narrow commercial interests, Oxfam argued in a recent report prepared, partly, in response to similar assertions by the bank.

Moreover, the group said, "governments and companies who preach the virtues of free trade the loudest are the most guilty of practising protectionism when it suits them".

The World Bank acknowledged that the current downturn could inflame protectionist sentiment, contrary to the lender's own expectations of this month's talks, particularly with respect to key developing-country agricultural and textile exports.

"The international community thus faces a clear choice," the bank report said. "Continue down the path toward greater openness" or "allow the hiatus in the wake of the WTO meetings in Seattle to endure".

Trade policies

The lending institution echoed calls by numerous others - including, recently, Nobel laureate and former bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz - for wealthy nations to show good faith by showing restraint in anti-dumping cases, increasing multilateral "aid for trade", and allowing the lowest-income countries duty-free and quota-free access to their markets.

Stern assailed rich-country subsidies, currently running at around US$1 billion a day or more than six times all development aid, as a major hurdle to trade with developing countries.

The institution has no role in setting the trade policies of its more powerful shareholders, however, so its report confined itself to preaching to developing countries. It argued that trade integration could help lift between 600 million and 900 million people above the poverty line of US$2 a day by 2015, depending on the speed and scale of the process.

"Liberalisation of services in developing countries," the report added, "could provide even greater gains." Many developing countries have been particularly uneasy about allowing foreign penetration of domestic services markets.