Annan pleads for global trade treaty

United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan urged world leaders to adopt a treaty to liberalise global trade next year which, as a crucial first step, will give exports from the world’s poorest countries duty-free and quota-free access to all markets.

Annan told international finance and trade officials meeting at the United Nations following weekend talks in Washington that completing the so-called Doha Round of trade talks was essential to helping meet UN goals to halve the number of people living in dire poverty by 2015.

The World Trade Organisation launched the talks in 2001 with the aim of slashing subsidies, tariffs and other barriers to global commerce, and using trade to help poor nations.

But in 2003 a WTO conference in Cancun, Mexico, collapsed amid bickering over investment rules between rich and poor nations and differences on agriculture.