Market Access: The Persistence of Barriers.

• Author: Cattaui, Maria Livanos
• Position: Developing countries should be included in world market globalization

For the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) - the only organization that represents business throughout the world-unfettered access to markets has always been a fundamental goal. There is no way that our resolute support for the free flow of goods and services and for further liberalization of the multilateral trading system will ever slacken.

ICC consists of companies and associations of every size, representing every business sector and from every part of the world. It follows that we have no

special sectoral or regional interest to promote in preference to any other. In the context of the United Nations, it is worth stressing that we have always considered that the full integration of developing countries into the global economy and their ability to reap the benefits of trade and investment liberalization are important measures of the success of globalization.

Since the end of the Uruguay Round and the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, market access has been substantially improved by multilateral agreements on basic telecommunications services (February 1997), information technology products (February 1997) and financial services (December 1997).

Other useful steps have been the hunch of a trade-related inter-agency technical assistance programme for least developed countries (LDCs) and the announcement by several countries of tariff reductions or eliminations on exports from LDCs, alongside other preferential access measures.

ICC members in developing countries consistently point out that. hand in hand with the requirements of market access, structural challenges faced by their economies must also be resolved.

These structural challenges must be faced if developing countries are to benefit fully from opportunities created by trade and investment liberalization and globalization. For our members, the five key points are:

* A stable political system, supported by a professional and accountable public service;

* A comprehensive, transparent and non-discriminatory legal framework conducive to modern commercial operations;

* Sound macro-economic, fiscal and monetary policies;

* A dynamic market economy and the need to support an expanding domestic market, growing demand and purchasing power, a healthy local private sector and efficient and soundly regulated capital markets and financial services; and

* Rising standards of education, health care and social infrastructure.

An informal survey of ICC members in...