*{Geneva Business Dialogue Conference Report 

23 - 24 September 1998 

Plea for "collective economic responsibility" [http://www.iccwbo.org/home/conferences/reports/geneva_business_dialogue/plea_for_responsibility.asp]} 
 
The new agenda for trade liberalization confronting government and business was the focus of the session on "Trade and investment – the next hot issues." Citing an editorial by Mr Ruggiero published the day before, Arthur Dunkel, Chairman of ICC’s Commission on International Trade and Investment Policy and a former Director General of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, said that "moving forward on global trade together" would require a "sense of collective economic responsibility."
John Weekes, Canada’s Permanent Representative at the WTO and Chairman of the WTO General Council, explained that most of the new core issues on the WTO agenda – such as investment and competition policy – increasingly addressed regulatory matters which concerned business worldwide. 
Ambassador Weekes said that the role of the WTO in writing world trade rules was essential to the health of the world economy. While in 1950, exports constituted only 7% of world output, this figure had risen to 25% in 1998. He added that trade liberalization was especially important for developing countries, given that, on average, 38% of the output of developing countries was exported.
Riccardo Perissich, Pirelli’s Director of Public and Economic Affairs, said that progress in trade and investment liberalization over the last 15 years had changed the world. The current financial turmoil was wrongly portrayed as a crisis of free markets by some, who were unable to distinguish between free markets and black markets. Mr Perissich explained that the current crisis was not global, but rather due to specific geographic circumstances, as well as structural, political and institutional problems.

*partie=titre Developing countries special concerns *partie=nil

Hari Shankar Singhania, a former ICC President and Chairman of JK Corporation, India, said that business conditions had improved markedly in developing countries over recent years, leading to increased inflows of foreign direct investment. Mr Singhania questioned the need for a multilateral agreement on investment (MAI) that did not take into consideration the concerns of developing countries. He added that a MAI should consider both the rights and the obligations of foreign investors. 
Robert Lawrence, Professor of International Trade and Investment at Harvard University, said that fear of globalization had become pervasive all over the world. As examples, he cited the recent refusal by the US Congress to grant fast-track trade negotiating authority to the Administration, and its hesitation about extending funding to the International Monetary Fund. In this context, Mr Lawrence said that trade negotiations were victims of their own success, since by addressing issues of domestic regulation, they had become of concern to a much broader political constituency.

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