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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, September 13, 2003

Cuba Opposes Trade Liberalization at WTO Meeting

Cuba voiced opposition Friday to the liberalization of world trade at the World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Cancun, accusing it of thwarting poor countries to develop.


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Cuba voiced opposition Friday to the liberalization of world trade at the World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Cancun, accusing it of thwarting poor countries to develop.

During the WTO plenary session, Cuban Interior Minister Ricardo Cabrisas said that only when an unfair exchange disappeared and the poor countries obtained fair prices for their products, would the international trade serve to speed up development.

Otherwise, the liberalization of world trade could not contribute to the development of poor countries, nor could it help raise their living conditions, he said.

In his opinion, the results of trade liberalization turned out to be far from expectations. The commercial exchange was growing more and more unfair.

The minister then cited some data to support his assertion.

Since the creation of WTO, the price of basic non-oil products, like sugar, dropped at an annual average rate of 1.3 percent between 1995 and 2002. As a consequence, the earnings of five principal developing countries depending on the export of sugar declined about 3.4 billion US dollars in the same period.

Today, a growing number of financial resources were in the hands of rich countries, which were getting richer, but poor countries were left to struggle with their deteriorating conditions, the minister added.

At the meeting, the Cuban official also condemned the US embargo imposed on his country.

The 5th ministerial meeting of WTO, scheduled from Sept. 10-14 in the Mexican resort of Cancun, attracted participants from 146 members. Enditem


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