The Hindu : Front Page : Voice of developing countries being heard: Stiglitz

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Saturday, Nov 03, 2007
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Voice of developing countries being heard: Stiglitz

Antara Das

“Negotiations are more in the open”

Joseph Stiglitz

Kolkata: A positive development in trade agreements is that the voice of developing countries was finally being heard, economist and Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz said here on Friday. This was because the negotiations were more in the open due to wide media coverage that constrained the hands of the negotiators, he added.

Mr. Stiglitz was delivering a public lecture on “Making Globalisation Work” (a subject on which he has authored a book) organised by the Institute of Development Studies, Kolkata, and the Finance department of the West Bengal government.

Mr. Stiglitz expressed surprise at the suggestion of the United States Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson that India should liberalise its capital market. He cited various studies conducted by the World Bank that had shown that capital market liberalisation was bad for the economy, growth and stability of the developing countries.

“The two major markets of India and China were not affected by the East Asian crisis of 1997 because they had not liberalised their capital markets,” he said.

Mr. Stiglitz also spoke out against the Intellectual Property Regime under the World Trade Organisation, as it often impeded innovation by restricting access to knowledge and because it did not try to protect traditional knowledge.

“It is not just the gap in resources that separate the developed countries from the developing, but also the gap in information,” he said. The intellectual property rights were making it difficult to close the gap, he added.

However, Mr. Stiglitz sounded a note of optimism when he said that change would occur gradually, with the United States realising the need for multilateralism, a greater operation of the rule of law in international law and the changing economic landscape where India and China were emerging as economic powers.

Meets Buddhadeb

Special Correspondent adds:

Mr. Stiglitz met Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee later in the day and reportedly discussed strategies for sustainable economic growth of States like West Bengal, for tackling poverty and focussing on creation of jobs. He later told reporters that there was need for a “balance between agricultural and industrial sectors” to ensure sustainable economic growth. Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta was present at the meeting.

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