Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-43)
RT HON
DOUGLAS ALEXANDER
MP, MR MARTIN
DINHAM AND
MR ANTHONY
SMITH
21 JANUARY 2009
Q40 Hugh Bayley: Maybe you could
write to the Chairman at an appropriate time?
Mr Alexander: Certainly.
Q41 Mr Hendrick: I think it is generally
agreed that a successful completion of the Doha development round
would bring significant reductions in poverty around the world.
Can I ask you, Secretary of State, how optimistic you are that
Ron Kirk, the new US trade representative (USTR), will push for
a final deal on the Doha round?
Mr Alexander: Time will tell.
I have a meeting tomorrow with Pascal Lamy[15]
and I will perhaps be in a better position at that juncture because
I have not yet spoken since the inauguration of the new USTR.
It may well be that Pascal has taken the opportunity today to
do so, but Pascal Lamy will be with me in the Department tomorrow
and we will have a clearer sense there as to his judgement from
his position within the WTO as to where matters stand. That being
said, I took the opportunity at the time of the Annual Meetings
last October to meet with representatives of both the Obama campaign
and the McCain campaign who were leading on trade policy and an
individual who I met was keen to impress upon me that there had
been language included in the Democratic platform relating to
the completion of the Doha round, which given a lot of the rhetoric
and a lot of the debate around trade during the Presidential campaign
he took to be a not insignificant achievement in terms of the
framing of the platform. But as I say it is very early days, indeed
the earliest day in the Administration, and we will obviously
take the opportunity to press the case with the incoming Administration
as we did with Susan Schwab, his predecessor as USTR, but not
least given the state of the global economy at the moment there
is a real case for multilateral agreement being agreed.
Q42 Chairman: Secretary of State, if
the bell rings I might ask you to complete the replies in writing,
but first of all I would say that you have repeated a number of
times the Government's commitment to achieving the targets and
to recognising the need to maintain development and find creative
ways of doing this, and I think that is welcome. As our inquiry
continues, hopefully we will get more evidence which might reinforce
that and make some further suggestions which you would find useful,
but one particular thing coming up is obviously the G20 meeting
hosted by the UK in April. Can you give us an indication of what
your Department will be doing within that to reinforce the things
you have been telling us and reinvigorate the Financing for Development
process and ensuring also that developing countries have a real
part in that process so that they will hopefully be represented?
Mr Alexander: We would of course
want a summit which reflects the continuing challenge of addressing
the continuing financial problems of the global financial system,
but we have been working hard to make sure that the development
perspective is an element within the package emerging on 2 April.
In particular, we are looking for faster, better financing from
the multilaterals. Again, that was in part why I met Zoellick
last week, to impress upon him the urgency of delivering on the
undertakings he has made and urging him to consider where he can
go further in terms of counter-cyclical lending along with protection
of the poorest, which is what I spoke about earlier, in terms
of social protection programmes. Thirdly, there was also helpfully—and
we were supportive of this at the time—language included
in the Washington communiqué which, as well as dealing
with crisis management, anticipated more fundamental reform of
the IFIs,[16]
both the IMF and the World Bank, and in that sense there have
been four working groups established after the Washington meeting.
In December we had a French and an Indonesian co-chairs on the
World Bank Working Group, but we are actively engaged with the
French and the Indonesians in terms of what we would be looking
for as an outcome, recognising that the focus of most of the time
at the Summit will be on the immediate challenges both for the
poorest and for the rest of the world but not forgetting the prize
of more fundamental reform of the IFIs. So there are those three
broad categories, faster and better financing from the multilaterals,
social protection as a key instrument to protect the poorest from
the effects of the downturn, and thirdly the broader issues of
IFI reform.
Q43 Chairman: But will the developing
countries be represented in some way at this Summit? I know it
is a G20 Summit.
Mr Alexander: Yes. I repeat the
undertakings which I gave to President Kikweti, who I met when
I was in Doha, which is that our Prime Minister is committed to
active engagement with developing countries. The exact form of
that engagement will emerge in the weeks to come. I know that
my colleague, for example, Mark Malloch Brown, is holding a whole
series of meetings about the G20 London Summit when he travels
to the EU Summit in Addi Abasa. In terms of the exact attendance,
that has not yet been determined.
Chairman: Thank you very much. The bell
is going. My thanks to your colleagues. As I say, I hope we will
be able to produce a report which will be timely and relevant
and may have some additional ideas to put into the pot. Thank
you.
15 Director General of the World Trade Organisation Back
16
International Financial Institutions Back
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