Protectionism mounting despite G20 pledge: GTA report

(Reuters, Jonathan Lynn, Geneva

Mon Jun 21, 2010 1:14pm BST)

GENEVA (Reuters) - Major trading powers are continuing to impose protectionist measures in defiance of a promise by G20 leaders to keep markets open, according to a report by independent economists.

The report, by Global Trade Alert (GTA), to be issued later this week to coincide with the G20 summit in Toronto, finds that such policies in 2009 turned out much worse than was known at the time of the Pittsburgh summit last September.
"The costs of the ineffectual G20 pledges mount quarter by quarter," Simon Evenett, an economics professor at St. Gallen University in Switzerland and coordinator of GTA, said.
The report finds that nearly 650 protectionist measures implemented since the first crisis-related G20 summit in November 2008, when leaders promised to avoid protectionism, remain in place.
The findings of GTA, which has consistently warned that protectionism is running at a far higher level than governments acknowledge, are not shared by all economists.
 
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NOTE:

The 6th Global Trade Alert Report

The 6th Global Trade Alert report will be published later this week to coincide with the Toronto G20 Leaders' Summit. It presents a comprehensive global overview of protectionist trends since the last G20 summit in September 2009. It also draws upon a substantial expansion in the evidence collected by the GTA team during 2010 on the measures announced and implemented by governments since November 2008.