SUNS 4613 Thursday 24 February 2000

south-north development monitor SUNS [Email Edition]

contents

Trade: UNCTAD Plan of Action provides critique of WTO agreements (Chakravarthi Raghavan, Geneva)

Trade: The ebb tide of integration in Central America (IPS, San Jose)

Brazil: Minimum wage loses buying power while GDP grows (IPS, Rio de Janeiro)

Russia: Debt burden remains burdensome (IPS, Moscow)

United Nations: Singaporean to head UN's investigative unit (IPS, New York)

Australia: UN probes 'racist' laws on children (IPS, Canberra)

TRADE: UNCTAD PLAN OF ACTION PROVIDES CRITIQUE OF WTO AGREEMENTS

Geneva, 23 Feb (Chakravarthi Raghavan) -- The WTO trading system has asymmetries and imbalances against the developing world, has made 'late-comers' face more stringent policy conditions for industrialization and development, and the remaining trade barriers have a negative impact on developing countries.

In making this assessment, using some oblique and guarded language, the Plan of Action adopted by consensus on 19 February by UNCTAD-X has in effect endorsed the negative view about the WTO system that is gaining increasing currency in the developing world - among governments, and even more among the enterprises and civil society.