International CEOs Urge Progress on Doha Negotiations During WTO Meetings in Geneva

October 14, 2005

World Business Leaders for Growth, an organization made up of six of the world’s leading business advocacy organizations, today called upon all World Trade Organization governments to commit to securing the conditions for a successful Hong Kong Ministerial meeting and, ultimately, a successful Doha Round outcome. The call was made by member chief executive officers who traveled to Geneva for a series of meetings with leading trade negotiators and ambassadors, including WTO Director General Pascal Lamy.

“The Doha negotiations have gained significant momentum this week in Geneva with important new proposals now on the table. At long last, we believe a breakthrough is now possible,” said Harold McGraw III, Chairman, President and CEO, The McGraw-Hill Companies and Chairman, Business Roundtable International Trade and Investment Task Force. “We urge all the WTO members to intensify their efforts and show real progress in the eight weeks remaining before the Hong Kong Ministerial.”

World Business Leaders for Growth includes the following CEO-level organizations:

• Business Council of Australia

• Business Roundtable (United States)

• Canadian Council of Chief Executives

• Consejo Mexicano de Hombres de Negocios (Mexico)

• The European Round Table of Industrialists

• Nippon Keidanren (Japan)

The group kicked off its partnership in September with the release of a call-to-action in the form of a policy paper: Advancing the Promise of Doha (www.trade.businessroundtable.org). The paper outlines recommendations for progress in negotiations on agriculture, industrial goods, services and trade facilitation, while highlighting the critical importance that trade liberalization has had on the global economy:

The success and the benefits of the WTO’s multilateral trading system have been recognized around the world. The WTO has grown from 23 GATT Contracting Parties in 1947 to 148 Members in 2005. The success of the past 8 rounds of multilateral negotiations has helped world trade grow from USD 80 billion in 1947 to USD 9 trillion today.

“Now is the time when business sectors throughout the world should be united and extend a strong and clear message to all WTO Members calling for substantial progress in the Doha Development Agenda,” concluded Yoshiro Kuwata, Chairman, Hitachi High-Technologies Corporation, and Chairman of the Policy Subcommittee of Nippon Keidanren’s Committee on Trade & Investment.

In addition to its Geneva meetings, members of World Business Leaders for Growth have already met with leading officials in Washington, D.C., where they held a discussion with WTO Director General Pascal Lamy, and are planning a strong presence in Hong Kong during the December Ministerial meeting.

The World Business Leaders for Growth effort has been endorsed by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), which strongly supports the CEO-led initiative to help get the Doha Round back on track.

# # #

World Business Leaders for Growth is an international CEO-level organization formed to advocate for policies that promote sustained economic growth. The group was founded in September 2005, and includes the following organizations: Business Council of Australia, Business Roundtable (United States), Canadian Council of Chief Executives, Consejo Mexicano de Hombres de Negocios (Mexico), The European Round Table of Industrialists, and Nippon Keidanren (Japan).