Nduom decry trade barriers

MONTERREY, Mexico -- One message was delivered over and over by leaders from industrialized countries: Stop using protectionist measures to prop up weak industries.

The response at the United Nations' International Conference on Financing for Development was that rich countries should follow their own advice.

"Developing nations need greater access to markets of wealthy nations, and we must bring down the high trade barriers between developing nations themselves," President Bush said Friday morning.

"When trade advances, there's no question but the fact that poverty retreats."

But developing countries want access to the markets of industrialized nations as well. Many developing countries are being asked to liberalize their economies, said Paa Kwesi Nduom, Ghana's minister for economic planning and regional cooperation. But some of the developed countries have not done the same.

Bush's arrival Friday brought up recent moves by the United States to limit cheap imports:

? On Friday, the U.S. Commerce Department imposed a 35 percent duty on softwood from Canada, saying U.S. lumber interests were hurt by subsidized Canadian wood.

? Earlier this month, duties were imposed on steel imports from a number of countries, including Russia and Brazil.

These tariffs were often cited as examples of how richer nations erect barriers to competition.

Before the conference, a consensus agreement laid out ways of halving poverty by 2015. Part of that document suggested developing nations could grow by opening their markets.

But Nduom brought up Ghana's problems in exporting tuna to Europe because of trade barriers.

Even development experts said the wealthy nations need to reconsider policies that stifle trade by artificially reducing the price of some products.

Rich nations must also take action to cut agricultural subsidies that rob poor countries of markets for their products.

Subsidies are six times what the rich countries provide in foreign aid to the developing world, said James Wolfensohn, president of the World Bank.

During his speeches Thursday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said developing countries need a real chance to trade their way out of poverty and thus further international aid.

Environmental organization Greenpeace also called for an end to subsidies.

The Monterrey consensus acknowledges that subsidies are of particular concern to developing countries, a Greenpeace statement said, but it fails to propose action to resolve this, the heart of the continued inequity between developing and industrialized countries.