Sevilla: The World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) today urged trade reforms to drive global prosperity, emphasising that a well-functioning multilateral trading system remains essential to enabling private sector-led growth.
In a joint statement issued by WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and ICC Secretary General John W.H. Denton AO at the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development in Sevilla today, they reaffirmed their “shared commitment” to harnessing the power of trade as a driver of global development, particularly in emerging and developing economies, where local businesses depend on predictable rules, open markets, and efficient trade processes to compete and thrive.
The joint statement highlighted that too many businesses around the world continued to face barriers that hinder their full participation in global trade, including constrained access to trade finance, working capital services, excessive border delays, and customs inefficiencies. These obstacles often hit the smallest and most dynamic enterprises the hardest, undermining both job creation and development impact.
Okonjo-Iweala and Denton called on governments and development partners gathered in Sevilla to reaffirm the centrality of the multilateral trading system as a foundation for global development. They urged strengthened efforts to identify and address regulatory frictions that inhibit cross-border trade and associated financing, including, as a priority, the erosion of correspondent banking networks and the unintended impacts of financial crime compliance regimes that have led to de-risking, particularly in regions most in need of trade finance.
The statement stressed the need for coordinated efforts to strengthen trade-related infrastructure, digitalisation of trade processes, and targeted capacity building for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to enhance economic and supply chain resilience. It positions enabling trade as a central pillar of any serious strategy for mobilising private capital at scale, underpinned by a shared effort to modernise core multilateral trade rules in line with the realities of 21st-century commerce.
The WTO and ICC leaders concluded by expressing their readiness to work with all stakeholders to ensure that trade can deliver on its full potential for people, planet, and prosperity, emphasising that collaborative action to implement trade reforms is critical to overcoming barriers and fostering inclusive economic growth through a robust multilateral trading system.
– global bihari bureau
