Copyright 1995 NLCIFT



Title:DECLARATION ON THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE MTO TO ACHIEVING GREATER COHERENCE IN GLOBAL ECONOMIC POLICYMAKING


           DECLARATION ON THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE MTO
 TO ACHIEVING GREATER COHERENCE IN GLOBAL ECONOMIC POLICYMAKING


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 r"le 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 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 future play a more substantial r"le
in ensuring the coherence of global economic policymaking.

4.   Ministers recognize, however, that difficulties whose
origins 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 MTO 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 MTO to review with the Managing Director of the
International Monetary Fund and the President of the World Bank,
the implications of the MTO'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.