EU, US trade policy has been unfair towards developing world

Europe and United States did not had a fair trade policy towards the emerging economies and the developed work needs to be provide them incentives to grow as they are the real engines of global economic growth, said Alexander Stubb, Finland's minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Sep 9, 2012, 17:53:53 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, Helsinki, Finland

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

Europe and United States did not had a fair trade policy towards the emerging economies and the developed work needs to be provide them incentives to grow as they are the real engines of global economic growth, said Alexander Stubb, Finland's minister for European Affairs and Foreign Trade.

He made the remark while speaking with a group of Indian journalists in Helsinki regarding the challenges Europe face because of new economic crises and how India and China can play a positive role in bailing the European Union out.

"Our business do not consider India and China as cheap labour market but the large consumer goods market to sell their products in future. The emerging economies are growing fast. We have to keep this in mind while planning our future economic strategy," he said.

In the same vein, he agreed with the criticism of the rich word that they were not willing to provide efficient and clean technologies to the developing world at an affordable price.

European Union has vehemently opposed any move to free clean technologies from intellectual property rights for human good.

Making it clear that future business would be in green technologies, he urged the European nations to realize that they "modern technologies have to come at cheap rates" and said the time has come for end of European and American dominance in trade.

The changing trade dynamics is also clear from Finland importing more it is exporting to India and this balances has changed in the last five years.

In the context of the changing balance, he described the trade policies of the developed world being "unfair" and said, "In my former role as foreign minister, I advocated a mode of dignified policy and believe applying this kind of approach could be fairer and result in all around growth."

He, however, doesn't believe that the Euro economic crises is result of growing economies such as India and China and the problem is because Europe's bad management of debts.

Stubb, 44 and alumni of London School of Economics, said, "I think the European Union has taken steps to overcome the Euro crisIs and I am confident that we would be able to overcome the crisis and create growth."

One area, where the ministers wants progress, is India and European Union Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

The agreement has been stuck for over an year because of stiff resistance by Japanese automobile manufacturers, who sell most cars in India.

Stubb said the "good" agreement was caught in "bureaucratic hurdles" from both sides and wanted both parties to fast track signing of the agreement.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

Get the latest headlines from US news and global updates from Pakistan, Nepal, UK, Bangladesh, Russia and US Iran war Live, get all the latest headlines in one place on Hindustan Times.