               DECLARATION ON THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE MTO
     TO ACHIEVING GREATER COHERENCE IN GLOBAL ECONOMIC POLICYMAKING


1.    Ministers recognize that the globalization of the world economy has 
led to ever-growing interactions between the economic policies pursued by 
individual countries, including interactions between the structural, 
macroeconomic, trade, financial and development aspects of economic 
policymaking.  The task of achieving harmony between these policies falls 
primarily on governments at the national level, but their coherence 
internationally is an important and valuable element in increasing the 
effectiveness of these policies at national level.  The Agreements reached 
in the Uruguay Round show that all the participating governments recognize 
the contribution that liberal trading policies can make to the healthy 
growth and development of their own economies and of the world economy as a 
whole.

2.    Successful cooperation in each area of economic policy contributes to 
progress in other areas.  Greater exchange rate stability, based on more 
orderly underlying economic and financial conditions, should contribute 
towards the expansion of trade, sustainable growth and development, and the 
correction of external imbalances.  There is also a need for an adequate and 
timely flow of concessional and non-concessional financial and real 
investment resources to developing countries and for further efforts to 
address debt problems, to help ensure economic growth and development.  
Trade liberalization forms an increasingly important component in the 
success of the adjustment programmes that many countries are undertaking, 
often involving significant transitional social costs.  In this connection, 
Ministers note the rle of the World Bank and the IMF in supporting 
adjustment to trade liberalization, including support to net food-importing 
developing countries facing short-term costs arising from agricultural trade 
reforms.

3.    The positive outcome of the Uruguay Round is a major contribution 
towards more coherent and complementary international economic policies.  
The results of the Uruguay Round ensure an expansion of market access to the 
benefit of all countries, as well as a framework of strengthened 
multilateral disciplines for trade.  They also guarantee that trade policy 
will be conducted in a more transparent manner and with greater awareness of 
the benefits for domestic competitiveness of an open trading environment.  
The strengthened multilateral trading system emerging from the Round has the 
capacity to provide an improved forum for liberalization, to contribute to 
more effective surveillance, and to ensure strict observance of 
multilaterally agreed rules and disciplines.  These improvements mean that 
trade policy can in future play a more substantial rle in ensuring the 
coherence of global economic policymaking.

4.    Ministers recognize, however, that difficulties whose origins lie 
outside the trade field cannot be redressed through measures taken in the 
trade field alone.  This underscores the importance of efforts to improve 
other elements of global economic policymaking to complement the effective 
implementation of the results achieved in the Uruguay Round.

5.    The interlinkages between the different aspects of economic policy 
require that the international institutions with responsibilities in each of 
these areas follow consistent and mutually supportive policies.  The MTO 
should therefore pursue and develop cooperation with the international 
organizations responsible for monetary and financial matters, while 
respecting the mandate, the confidentiality requirements and the necessary 
autonomy in decision-making procedures of each institution, and avoiding the 
imposition on governments of cross-conditionality or additional conditions.  
Ministers further invite the Director-General of the MTO to review with the 
Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund and the President of 
the World Bank, the implications of the MTO's responsibilities for its 
cooperation with the Bretton Woods institutions, as well as the forms such 
cooperation might take, with a view to achieving greater coherence in global 
economic policymaking.
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