AUT: Rich Nations Seek a Level Killing Field (fwd)

["Harry M. Cleaver" <hmcleave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 10:28:41 -0700
From: Anna Hoyle <ahoyle@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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Subject: Rich Nations Seek a Level Killing Field

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>Subject: [ips-cooperation] IPS-English DEVELOPMENT: Rich Nations Seek a
Level Killing Field
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>ROMAWAS WD DV
>
>DEVELOPMENT: Rich Nations Seek a Level Killing Field
>
>   By Thalif Deen
>
>UNITED NATIONS, Sep. 30 (IPS) - The message from the podium at the
>new session of the UN General Assembly has been clear and to the
>point: liberalisation of trade and open markets are killing some
>of the fragile economies of the world's poorer nations.
>
>   Still, declares Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad with
>his usual flair for sarcasm, the rich nations of the world insist
>on a level killing field - ''this way, they say, competition will
>be fair.''
>
>   Complaints against globalisation have come from a cross section
>of developing nations - ranging from Malaysia and Jamaica to
>Bhutan and Tanzania - who say that free trade and currency de-
>controls are making some countries richer - and most others poor
>and poorer.
>
>   Mahathir, whose country's economy was nearly devastated by
>Western currency speculators, admits that the unrestricted flow of
>goods and services across borders may be good for a while.
>
>   ''But eventually it will destroy markets and result in
>contraction of world trade. The world actually will become poorer
>because of free trade,'' he says.
>
>   Mahathir points out that, unfortunately, the ground rules for
>the poorer nations have been laid down by the rich and the mighty.
>''The world should be borderless, that capital, goods and services
>should flow freely between countries and there should be no
>discriminatory taxes to protect local industries or products,'' he
>says.
>
>   The rich countries also say that there should be a level
>playing field, without conditions attached to foreign banks and
>businesses wishing to operate in developing nations who must have
>national status like those given to local businesses.
>
>   ''But can competitions between giants and dwarfs be fair even
>if the playing field is level?," Mahathir asks.
>
>   Addressing the 188-member General Assembly, Tanzanian President
>Benjamin William Mkapa has been equally sceptical of
>globalisation. ''As we enter the century of globalisation, let all
>governments ask the question: are we globalising prosperity, or
>are we globalising poverty?'' he queries.
>
>   Mkapa believes that the process of liberalisation and
>globalisation has profound implications for Africa and other
>developing nations - in terms of their position in the world
>economy, their development, the nature of their economic policies
>and their impact on economic sovereignty.
>
>   ''Are we striving for the kind of political correctness that
>eschews affluence and poverty, or that which manufactures
>euphemisms for poverty - pretending it will go away?'' he ponders.
>
>   Despite positive macro-economic achievements in recent years,
>the average African household now consumes less than it did 25
>years ago.
>
>   ''The community of nations should rethink the mechanisms and
>policies that underpinned the functioning of the global economy,
>in order to create an international environment conducive to the
>rapid economic development of the world's poorer nations,'' Mkapa
>says.
>
>   The Tanzanian president maintains that the United Nations will
>be measured in the coming century by, among other things, the
>degree to which these issues - particularly the development
>dimension - is addressed.
>
>   Expressing the sentiments of most Caribbean countries, Jamaican
>Foreign Minister Seymour Mullings says that the current orthodoxy
>of free markets and the development model based on liberalisation,
>deregulation and privatisation is not fulfilling its heralded
>benefits in trade and investment flows.''
>
>   ''There is evident need to review the prescriptions and to
>promote a development policy which takes more into account the
>specific socio-economic context of developing countries and to
>devise more equitable arrangements in international economic
>relations,'' he says.
>
>   Mullings says the differences in levels in resource endowments,
>the early advantage in modernisation of production processes,
>capital accumulation, and technological development -  have helped
>consolidate the dominance of developed countries in world
>production and trade.
>
>   ''Those who have started later in the day will not find it easy
>to close the gap,'' he warns.
>
>   Lyonpo Jigmi Y. Thinley, Foreign Minister of the landlocked
>kingdom of Bhutan, admits that globalisation offers unprecedented
>opportunities for sustained economic development.
>
>   ''Paradoxically, the rapid processes of change and adjustment
>have been accompanied by intensified poverty, unemployment and
>social disorientation,'' he says. ''Fears that current patterns of
>market-driven globalisation may even give rise to further
>marginalisation of developing countries are not altogether
>unfounded.
>
>   ''All these clearly indicate that there is an acute need for
>balance, to forge a middle path for the process of
>globalisation.''
>
>  Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas says that the
>international agenda has been steered by developed countries to
>open doors for their foreign investments, private capital flows
>and their exports, This has led to the eclipse of development.
>
>   Technology unlocks the power of globalisation which has been
>used by the strong to press their advantage over the weak, says
>Alatas. ''Our tragedy is not in our ignorance but in the waste of
>our wisdom; the truth is that we know the solutions to our
>problems.'' he added. (END/IPS/td/mk/99)
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