Mr. Chairman, I do not know if he read the article or heard the statement made by the secretary general of the United Nations. He said that the best thing that we can do for developing countries is to liberalize trade. This could inject approximately $150 billion a year into their economies, more than all foreign aid combined.
Developing countries are making it very clear to all other countries that they want liberalized trade and that they need to participate fully in the international trade and investment system to meet their own development goals.
There are three particular things in which they are interested. They want to have market access for their exports so their economies can grow. They want rules to recognize their development status but not rules that impose burdens they cannot yet support. This stems from the difficulties in implementing the results from the last round of negotiations in the Uruguay round. They need technical assistance for their governments and infrastructure so they can benefit from the rights and obligations of the WTO.
Canada has joined a widespread consensus in the need to support developing countries in their attempts to integrate further into the world trading system in these three ways. The growth and development round will further this objective. We have been working hard to demonstrate to developing countries that a new round would assist their developing efforts.
A new round of negotiations is also the best way to address the concerns of developing countries over the balance of obligations and concessions in the world trading system. Developing countries want a round that covers a limited number of areas. Many hold that they took on more than they were able to deliver and at the same time received less benefit than they were promised in the Uruguay round. They are more prudent now.
We are flexible in the scope of negotiations as we recognize that this is a major issue for developing countries. We have given careful consideration to their concerns in the three areas I mentioned, namely market access, implementation of rules, and technical assistance and capacity building.