G20 not keeping promise in trade fight - EU commissioner

Oct 18 (Reuters) - Industrialised nations have not kept their promises to fight protectionism and should work out a new multilateral trade agreement, the European Union's trade chief said on Tuesday.

In the text of a speech to be delivered at a conference of German engineers, European Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht said that over the past year alone the EU's trading partners had introduced 130 new trade restrictions.

"The members of the G20 have clearly not kept all their promises," said De Gucht. "The EU will therefore continue to remind its trading partners of their commitments in all multilateral and bilateral fora."

Talks for a global trade accord have all but failed at the World Trade Organisation and worldwide economic concerns have further chilled the global trade climate.

De Gucht said that only 17 percent of protectionist measures introduced since the start of the crisis had so far lapsed.

"So measures designed to temporarily support demand hit by the crisis, are now locked in," he said.

The best way forward would be a new multilateral trade agreement, he said, but admitted that progress seemed unlikely.

"However, it is true that so far finding a compromise has proved to be unlikely," he said.

The EU would support any proposals to unblock the stalemate and hope the December WTO ministerial meeting to at least "map out the way ahead for the coming year".

More than 36 million jobs in Europe depend on trade and net exports were responsible for one third of EU economic growth in 2010, according to EU figures.

October 18, 2011

Source: Reuters