UNCTAD's Trade and Development Report 2003 offers a distinct perspective on global economic trends and prospects and raises some disturbing questions about the frail state of the trade-development nexus - particularly critical in the aftermath of Cancún. It traces the difficulties back to the surges in global trade and financial flows in the 1990s and warns that pushing liberalization at a time of sluggish global growth and unemployment runs the danger of rekindling mercantilist reactions in advanced countries and false expectations in developing countries.
The focus of this analysis is Latin America, where market-led trade reforms have gone furthest but where initial signs of success have not endured. As UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan notes in his Foreword, "The Report provides explanations that may challenge conventional points of view, and calls for new thinking on development strategies".
On the troubled state of the world economy, the Report asks:
- Do recent signs of recovery suggest the US has now thrown off the legacies of earlier financial excess, or is a more uncertain period of jobless growth the more likely scenario? And are the constraints on growth in the European Union structural or macroeconomic in origin?
- What has allowed Asia to steer through the global downturn and re-establish its position as growth hub of the South?
- Does downsizing the public sector and attracting FDI describe a good investment climate?
- Are there alternatives to liberalization?
