The poor's best hope

摘要

The launch of a new round of multilat-eral trade negotiations (MTN) at Doha dealt a needed blow to the anti-globalisers who triumphed at Seattle just two years ago. But it was also important for a different reason. The word "development" now graces the name of the new round. This is unconventional, but it underlines the fact that development of the poor countries will be the round's central objective. Pleasing rhetoric aside, however, we must ask: What does this mean? The question is not idle. For if the current thinking among policymakers and NGOS is any guide, the answer they would give is not the right one. And that is cause for alarm. Of course, proponents of trade have always considered that trade is the policy and development the objective. The experience of the post-war years only proves them right. The objections advanced by a handful of dissenting economists, claiming that free-traders exaggerate the gains from trade or forget that good trade policy is best embedded within a package of reforms, are mostly setting up and knocking down straw men.