Developing coherent and consistent trade policies for inclusive and sustainable development

As the financial crisis hit the United States and Europe, the resulting drop in demand in these regions led to a massive fall in exports from the Asia-Pacific region, triggering an economic crisis there. While there have been calls for development policy to refocus on promoting domestic demand instead of exports, for many countries the only immediate way to restore growth is through restoring trade. Though trade is essentially a crossborder phenomenon, trade policy formulation takes place at the national level. The current crisis offers an excellent opportunity to review national trade policies and the way they are formulated and implemented. This chapter makes the case for trade as an important, though not sufficient, element of development and to refocus trade policy formulation to enhance the contribution of trade to sustainable development and poverty reduction, i.e. trade for inclusive and sustainable development. This chapter reviews the role of government in promoting trade for development and underscores the need to mainstream trade in development policies and development objectives in trade policy to ensure policy coherence and consistency.

Sustainable Development Goals:

Decent Work and Economic Growth

Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions