ARTICLES FROM CUTS-2006

Think Global

Published: Business Standard, June 12, 2006
By M Shamsur Rabb Khan

This refers to Pradeep S Mehta’s “No agreement minus agriculture” (June 5). The writer is correct when he regards the World Trade Organisation (WTO) route as the best way forward because it sets out to boost the global economy and lift millions out of poverty by lowering trade barriers. The three suggestions put forward by Mehta should be taken seriously.

However, the requirement – the writer calls it “imaginative thinking” – is strenuously challenging. If more contentious issues are sidelined for a moment as suggested by Mehta, the roadmap for the Doha Round could be achieved with a united consent of all parties. But here is a question for all stakeholders: which interest is better – global or national? The answer is all too obvious: national.

However, we must explore that global solution, which encompasses national, regional and local interest, all together. For this an “international interest” needs to be developed, which can be a collective vision of national and regional interests. Because global issues require global effort with a broader sense of responsibility, world leaders need to think in that perspective. And WTO, after all is a global issue. Unless the men at the helm of affairs think, behave and work keeping in mind the global problems, the WTO will continue to trudge the trade path, resulting in a wider gap.

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