Trade, Growth and Development: An Assessment

Detaljna analiza 24-09-2015

The European Commission communication ‘Trade, Growth and Development’ was published in January 2012 as a direct spin-off of the more general communication ‘Trade, Growth and World Affairs’. It was also a response to the criticism levelled by many non-governmental organisations, governments of developing countries and other stakeholders at the Commission’s trade policies (in particular economic partnership agreements) with traditional African, Caribbean and Pacific partners. The communication secured greater clarity and coordination between development- and trade-oriented policies, but it does not appear to have produced revolutionary changes. A number of updates have addressed the progress made by developing countries in the era of globalisation, but the essential separation remains. The communication did, however, have the unquestionable merit of promoting the modernisation of certain development-oriented trade instruments, such as the Generalised System of Preferences, and concentrating declining resources on fragile and least-developed countries.