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Clinton issues

trade plea to

Third World

DAVOS (Switzerland): U.S. President Bill Clinton on Saturday issued a plea to developing nations to consider trade policies to protect labour rights and the environment, issues that helped sink Seattle trade talks.

Two hours after he spoke, some 2,000 demonstrators bent on disrupting the World Economic Forum summit in this Swiss Alps ski resort smashed windows but failed to penetrate tight security to get near the conference centre.

Riot police surrounded the protesters, who smashed car windscreens and windows of a McDonald's restaurant. Anti-free trade groups had threatened to disrupt the conference, as they did December's World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks in Seattle.

In his speech before the summit, Clinton called the protesters who disrupted Seattle "dead wrong".

"Those who wish to roll back the forces of globalization because they fear its disruptive consequences I believe are plainly wrong," he said. "Fifty years of experience shows that greater economic integration and political cooperation are positive forces."

Clinton used his appearance before the World Economic Forum, an annual gathering of world leaders and business executives, to promise to try to launch a new global trade round as soon as possible, after failing to do so in Seattle.

Clinton's appeal for WTO sanctions against countries that fail to impose better protections for their workers and environment angered leaders of developing nations at the meeting of the 135-nation WTO in Seattle.

They fear that costly labour and environmental protection will increase the costs of their exports and make them less competitive in the markets of rich countries.

Clinton said developing nations should be able to achieve growth without making the mistakes the developed countries made on their own paths to industrialisation.

"I know that the words 'labour and environment' are heard with suspicion in the developing world when they are uttered by people in the developed world. I understand that these words are code for rich country protectionism.

"So let me be as clear as possible on this. We shouldn't do anything to stunt the economic growth and development of any developing nations. I have never asked any developing nations, and never will, to give up a more prosperous future," he said.

CALLS FOR OPENNESS

But he added: "We simply cannot expect trade alone to carry the burden of lifting nations out of poverty. It will not happen."

Clinton urged the WTO to answer protesters by making more documents public more quickly and opening up dispute hearings.

"The more we hunker down and refuse to devote time systematically to discussing these issues and letting people express their honest opinions, the more we are going to fuel the fires of protectionism, not put them out," he said.

To reach the World Economic Forum, Clinton flew overnight from Washington to Zurich then boarded his Marine One helicopter for a half-hour trip through the snow-cloaked Swiss Alps on a gray day. He was only expected to be on the ground in Switzerland about 12 hours before flying home.

The failure to launch a new round of trade talks while on Clinton's home turf was a deep disappointment to the president, who has only a year left in office to prod the talks ahead.

"I will keep working for consensus on a new round," Clinton told an audience including leaders from rich and poor nations and European and U.S. labour bosses sceptical about free trade.

"We will show flexibility and will ask our partners to do the same," he added.

Clinton predicted a tough fight in the U.S. Congress to gain approval of normal trade relations with China, a vote seen as Congress' chance to have its say on the market-opening deal the Clinton administration reached with China late last year on Beijing's entry into the WTO.

"I think it would be a mistake of monumental proportion for the United States not to support China's entry," he said.

He called on the European Union to agree to negotiate over its agricultural subsidies, saying that would give a huge boost to the economies of developing countries exporting farm produce.-Reuters