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1. Ministers recognize
that the globalization of the world economy has led to ever-growing
interactions between the economic policies pursued by individual
countries, including interactions between the structural,
macroeconomic, trade, financial and development aspects of economic
policymaking. The task of
achieving harmony between these policies falls primarily on
governments at the national level, but their coherence internationally
is an important and valuable element in increasing the effectiveness
of these policies at national level. The Agreements reached in the Uruguay Round show that all the
participating governments recognize the contribution that liberal
trading policies can make to the healthy growth and development of
their own economies and of the world economy as a whole.
2. Successful cooperation in each area of economic policy
contributes to progress in other areas. Greater exchange rate stability, based on more orderly
underlying economic and financial conditions, should contribute
towards the expansion of trade, sustainable growth and development,
and the correction of external imbalances. There is also a need for an adequate and timely flow of
concessional and non-concessional financial and real investment
resources to developing countries and for further efforts to address
debt problems, to help ensure economic growth and development. Trade liberalization forms an increasingly important component
in the success of the adjustment programmes that many countries are
undertaking, often involving significant transitional social costs.
In this connection, Ministers note the role of the World Bank
and the IMF in supporting adjustment to trade liberalization,
including support to net food-importing developing countries facing
short-term costs arising from agricultural trade reforms.
3. The positive outcome of the Uruguay Round is a major
contribution towards more coherent and complementary international
economic policies. The
results of the Uruguay Round ensure an expansion of market access to
the benefit of all countries, as well as a framework of strengthened
multilateral disciplines for trade. They also guarantee that trade policy will be conducted in a
more transparent manner and with greater awareness of the benefits for
domestic competitiveness of an open trading environment. The strengthened multilateral trading system emerging from the
Uruguay Round has the capacity to provide an improved forum for
liberalization, to contribute to more effective surveillance, and to
ensure strict observance of multilaterally agreed rules and
disciplines. These
improvements mean that trade policy can in the future play a more
substantial role in ensuring the coherence of global economic
policymaking.
4. Ministers recognize,
however, that difficulties the origins of which lie outside the trade
field cannot be redressed through measures taken in the trade field
alone. This underscores
the importance of efforts to improve other elements of global economic
policymaking to complement the effective implementation of the results
achieved in the Uruguay Round.
5. The interlinkages between the different aspects of economic
policy require that the international institutions with
responsibilities in each of these areas follow consistent and mutually
supportive policies. The
World Trade Organization should therefore pursue and develop
cooperation with the international organizations responsible for
monetary and financial matters, while respecting the mandate, the
confidentiality requirements and the necessary autonomy in
decision-making procedures of each institution, and avoiding the
imposition on governments of cross-conditionality or additional
conditions. Ministers
further invite the Director-General of the WTO to review with the
Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund and the President
of the World Bank, the implications of the WTO’s responsibilities for
its cooperation with the Bretton Woods institutions, as well as the
forms such cooperation might take, with a view to achieving greater
coherence in global economic policymaking.
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