Thursday, November 25, 2010

G20 Seoul summit and trade financing

Marc Aubion outlines how the recent G20 meeting in Seoul has provided a mandate to multilateral institutions to address a lack of affordable trade financing being suffered by low income countries. He argues that “over the coming weeks we will see institutions such as the WTO, the World Bank, as well as others work together in order to address such obstacles, along the lines of the G20 mandate.”


  • "addressing regulatory reform pertaining specifically to emerging market and developing economies: we agreed to work on financial stability issues that of particular interest to emerging market and developing economies, and called on the FSB, IMF and World Bank to develop and report fore the next Summit. These issues could include: (....); trade finance."
  • "To support LIC capacity to trade (...), we note our commitment to (..) support measure to increase the availability of trade finance in developing countries, particularly LICs. In this respect, we also agree to monitor and to assess trade finance programs in support of developing countries, in particular their coverage and impact on LICs, and to evaluate the impact of regulatory regimes on trade finance."