WTO Meeting To Ease Credit Shortage For Trade

“The World Trade Organization (WTO) has summoned leaders of top banks to find new ways to finance the global exchange of goods and services, which faces a slowdown because of the tight credit constraints caused by the financial crisis. …

In a letter to invitees, Lamy said the meeting of about 15 leaders would review how the international market for financing trade is faring, and look at ways to improve the availability of funds at affordable rates for developing countries.

The WTO said key international players need to figure out how to ensure a sufficient supply of capital for traders looking to cover risks such as the bankruptcy of commercial partners, damaged or delayed deliveries, transportation problems or sudden shifts in exchange rates. …” [The Associated Press/Factiva]

Dow Jones adds that “…WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy will chair the gathering in Geneva on November 12. World Bank President Robert Zoellick, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn and representatives of Citigroup Inc., Commerzbank AG, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and HSBC Holdings are among those invited. …” [Dow Jones/Factiva]

In related WTO news, Reuters reports that “A group of major developing countries has denounced efforts to promote deals eliminating tariffs in some individual industrial sectors as contrary to the spirit of the WTO Doha round.

The statement from the NAMA-11 group, which includes Argentina, Brazil, India and South Africa, shows that the sectoral discussions remain a major stumbling block in the Doha talks, as sector deals are a US priority. …The NAMA-11 statement says that eliminating tariffs in a range of sectors would run counter to the Doha round's development mandate, which calls for developing countries to make smaller moves than rich nations. …” [Reuters/Factiva]

In a separate piece, Reuters notes that “Leaders of major rich and poor countries meeting this month to discuss the global financial crisis should avoid erecting new national barriers to services such as banking, service sector lobbyists said on Monday. ‘Strong commitments by leaders to maintain open markets, and to pursue further liberalization, are an appropriate response to the financial and economic crisis,’ the Global Services Coalition (GSC) said. …” [Reuters/Factiva]

APEC Financial Ministers Gather In Peru To Discuss Economic Crisis

“Vice financial ministers and high level officials from 21 economies of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) gathered in Trujillo, Peru Monday to discuss economic issues.

Peruvian Vice Finance Minister Eduardo Moron inaugurated the meeting, the preparation work for the 15th APEC Ministers Meeting to be held in Lima on November 21 and 22. ‘We will exchange opinions and information on macroeconomic issues, including the national and regional political priorities as it is the international financial crisis,’ Moron said. …” [Xinhua/Factiva]

In a separate piece, Xinhua adds that “The 21 member economies of the APEC forum are planning to build a ‘protection line’ against international financial crisis, said Moron on Monday. …On food prices, he said that the APEC members ‘were analyzing carefully food prices in the future, with hope that world agriculture offer stabilizes and even increases.’ …

Together with vice financial ministers of APEC Economies, senior officials from international finance organizations, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Asian Development Bank and the Andean Corporation of Promotion, also attended the meeting. …” [Xinhua/Factiva]

Reuters reports that “…The diverse mix of countries in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum - ranging from the US to emerging economies in Asia and Latin America - could make it difficult to forge agreements on taking bold action. …

Any progress made at the two-day meeting in northern Peru would raise prospects for a meeting of finance ministers and central bankers at the G 20/Bank of International Settlements that starts on Friday in Brazil. Action plans formulated in Peru and Brazil could be passed on to government leaders at summits of the G20 in Washington Nov. 14-15, and the APEC leaders a week later in Lima. …” [Reuters/Factiva]

EU Rules Out Joint Stimulus, Backs Coordinated Action

“European finance ministers ruled out a joint stimulus package to revive the region's economy and vowed instead to coordinate national policies as they try to limit the fallout from a recession on consumers and companies… the ministers indicated they favor a looser system of  ‘coordinated’ measures.

EU countries have already begun planning measures to jumpstart their own economies, with Germany preparing a two-year program of investments and incentives to provide a EUR50 billion ($64 billion) stimulus. EU Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said such plans weren't at odds with the EU approach. …” [Bloomberg]

AFP notes that “EU finance ministers raised pressure on Tuesday for an injection of a stiff dose of tougher regulation into the global financial system in the face of US resistance. ‘Everything should be regulated in the future,’ said Dutch Finance Minister Wouter Bos as he arrived for a meeting with his EU counterparts. ‘The time has come when we can no longer just trust self regulation.’ …” [Agence France Presse/Factiva]

Xinhua adds that Almunia said “… ‘We need a coordinated action at the EU level to support the economy similar to what we have done for the financial sector,’ he said…In a document prepared for discussion by the finance ministers, the French presidency proposed for reform of international financial institutions…to improve supervision and monitoring of global financial markets.

It called for rapid establishment of supervisory colleges to oversight cross-border banks, adoption of codes of conduct to prevent excessive risk taking in the financial sector and tougher regulation of credit rating agencies. …” [Xinhua/Factiva]

Reuters notes that “EU finance ministers cleared a EUR 6.5 billion ($8.4 billion) loan for Hungary from the bloc on Tuesday, an EU diplomat said. The loan, to be raised by the European Commission on capital markets, is part of an International Monetary Fund package of $25.1 billion for the central European country, hit hard by the global financial crisis. …”  [Reuters/Factiva]

Poor Farm Policy Could Make 100 Million More Hungry: FAO Chief

“About 100 million more people will be living in hunger in a year if unfair global agriculture practices are not changed, the head of UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Jacques Diouf, warned Tuesday.

‘We are faced with a situation where the number of people going hungry in the world has reached 923 million this year,’ 75 million more than in 2007, he told a conference on EU farm policy at the European Parliament. ‘According to our forecasts, if this situation continues, in a year this will increase by 100 million,’ he said, criticizing the policies of rich farming nations and the way agriculture is organized world-wide. …” [Agence France Presse/Factiva]

Meanwhile Manila Bulletin reports that “…He Changchui, FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Asia and the Pacific based in Bangkok, urged developing countries to immediately adopt policies that support agriculture, noting that the impact of the twin crises of finance and food could be catastrophic. …

‘Governments of developing countries, therefore, must also do their part. …Policies that support agriculture, making it sustainable, rewarding and sufficiently productive to support us all must be adopted with urgency,’ the FAO official said. …The FAO official said that although the world saw some price drops for certain food commodities in the past months, average prices are still much higher than normal, and the international markets remain volatile. …” [Manila Bulletin/Factiva]

UK Prince Calls For Agency To Help Forests

“Britain’s Prince Charles has called for the establishment of an international agency to issue long-term environmental bonds to provide emergency funding to rainforest nations and protect the world’s endangered forests.

During a visit to Indonesia on Monday, the Prince of Wales said the proceeds of such a fund would be used to reduce developing nations’ reliance on industries such as palm oil and logging, which lead to the destruction of forests. …” [The Financial Times (UK)/Factiva]

BBC reports that “The Prince of Wales outlined the plan in a speech to the Indonesian President, Dr Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and his cabinet in Jakarta. He told the audience at the Merdeka Palace: ‘Indonesia and the other rainforest nations are stewards of the world's greatest public utility.” [BBC News]

CBC notes the Prince added that “…‘The rest of us have to start paying for it, just as we do for water, gas and electricity’. Rainforests act as the ‘world's greatest public utility,’ the Prince said, providing natural air conditioning, storing the largest body of freshwater and employing over 1 billion people…Under the proposal by the Prince's Rainforest Project, payments would operate like a ‘commercial transaction,’ he said. ‘In return the rainforest nations would provide eco-services such as carbon storage, fresh water and the protection of biodiversity.’…” [CBC (Canada)/Canada]

AFP reports that “…Yudhoyono, who said 25 percent of global carbon emissions was caused by deforestation, welcomed the prince's strategy to save the forests. ‘We share a similar passion,’ he said. …” [Agence France Presse/Factiva]

Also in this Edition… Briefly Noted…

UN Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon on Monday named former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo as his special envoy for international efforts to addressing the rising violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). [Xinhua/Factiva]

The UN Millennium Villages project experiment designed to boost health, agriculture and education in African villages has shown remarkable results but could be difficult to replicate at a national level, a study from the Overseas Development Institute has found. [The Financial Times (UK)/Factiva]

The government of Zimbabwe spent $7.3 million donated by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and has failed to honor requests to return the money, according to the organization’s inspector general John Parsons. [The New York Times/Factiva]

Itaú and Unibanco, Brazil’s second and third argest private-sector banks, are to merge to form the biggest bank in South America and one of the 20 biggest in the world. Shares in both banks surged on the news, announced an hour before trading began on the São Paulo Stock Exchange on Monday. [The Financial Times (UK)/Factiva]

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Monday it has reached an agreement in principle to lend Kyrgyzstan at least $60 million to deal with rising food and fuel prices. The IMF's Executive Board is expected to vote on the 18-month arrangement under the Fund's revamped Exogenous Shocks Facility early next month, it said in a release. [The Wall Street Journal/Factiva]

Serbia is in talks for an International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan to strengthen its budget, a government official said on Monday, making it the latest country to seek help from the international lender in the wake of a global financial crisis. [AFX Asia/Factiva]

The British government has ordered CDC Group, its agency for investment in private businesses in developing countries, to increase its investments in the world's poorest nations. In a statement to parliament on Monday, Douglas Alexander, Secretary of State for International Development, said that in the 2009-2013 period CDC will make more than 75 percent of its new investment in countries with an annual gross national income (GNI) per capita of less than $905. [Reuters/Factiva]

The G8 summit in 2010 will be held at a resort in eastern Canada on June 25-27, Canadian officials announced Monday. The location is at the Deerhurst Resort in the town of Huntsville, about 350 kilometers of Ottawa. [Xinhua/Factiva]

European Commission President Jose Manuel Durao Barroso said in Madrid Monday that his office and the other EU institutions back Spain's bid for a seat at the November 15 conference in the US to discuss the world financial crisis. [Agencia EFE/Factiva]