SEE ALSO:
press releases
WTO news
Mike Moore's speeches
Renato Ruggiero's speeches,
1995-99
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Signed by the
WTO's Director-General, Mr. Renato Ruggiero, and the IMF's Managing Director, Mr. Michel
Camdessus, the Agreement focuses on three main elements. First, it lays the basis for
carrying forward the WTO's Ministerial mandate to achieve greater coherence in global
economic policy by cooperating with the IMF as well as with the World Bank; a cooperation
agreement between the WTO and the World Bank was also recently finalized. Second,
reflecting the synergies in the work and responsibilities of the IMF and the WTO, the
Agreement provides channels of communication to ensure that the rights and obligations of
Members are integral to the thinking of each organization. Third, in keeping with enhanced
cooperation, the Agreement accords observer status to the IMF and WTO in certain of each
other's decision-making bodies. Thus, it grants the WTO observer status to appropriate
meetings of the IMF's Executive Board, when it considers trade issues, and in turn grants
observer status to the IMF on most WTO bodies. The Agreement signed today in
Singapore, on the opening day of the WTO's first Ministerial Conference, has other
benefits as well, including better access for both organizations to each other's
information and data. Such access is vital to avoid unnecessary duplication. The IMF's
macroeconomic information will be of great use to the WTO Secretariat, especially in the
preparation of the in-depth and regular Trade Policy Reviews of each WTO Member. In turn,
the IMF will have access to a wide range of WTO information, including its Integrated Data
Base, which contains trade statistics and information on WTO Members' tariff rates; this
is expected to help the Fund in its surveillance and lending activities.
While the
Agreement establishes new mechanisms by which the institutions can address each other, it
also reflects and builds on a long-standing successful relationship that has always been
friendly and largely informal. Thus, the institutions emphasize the need for their
day-to-day dialogue to develop in a natural way, creating a more fruitful, two-way
relationship between the organizations. Now that the institutional footing has been put in
place by the Agreement, it is anticipated that work will start soon to address issues
related to achieving better coherence in global economic policy making, an area where the
WTO, the IMF and the World Bank each have distinctive rôles.
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