HE Eng Hamad Buamim, Director General, Dubai Chamber of Commerce & Industry, represented Dubai’s business community at the first World Business Summit organised by International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Stockholm, Sweden, last week. After this successful visit, Buamim will be representing Dubai at the next meetings of WATAC which will be held on November 17-18 and that of WCF on November 19 in Beijing, China while he will also attend the ICC meeting being held in Hong Kong on November 20 this year and next year’s WCC meeting taking place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on June 3-4, 2009.
Hosted by Marcus Wallenberg, Chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the World Business Summit that brought together more than 350 top businessmen from 70 countries issued a statement stressing the vital importance of the multilateral trading system and called upon all governments, especially those of the biggest trading nations to finally summon the political will to bridge their outstanding differences and make the concessions necessary for a successful deal in the Doha round of world trade negotiations.
Attending the summit were trade experts Pascal Lamy, Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Peter Sutherland, Chairman of BP and Goldman Sachs International, and Ewa Bjorling, Trade Minister of Sweden. The meeting dealt with two of the most urgent issues for international business: growing trade and investment protectionism and the rampant counterfeit and piracy of goods and intellectual property, “Any collapse of the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations later this year would deal a big
blow to a world economy already reeling from the impact of a dangerous credit crisis and soaring oil and food prices,” Wallenberg said.
“The current state of the world economy makes completing the Doha Round more urgent than ever. Slowing economic growth, financial turmoil, soaring energy and food prices, and large payment imbalances are severely damaging business and consumer confidence. Successfully completing the Doha Round this year would send a strongly positive signal – just when it is direly needed – that governments can work together to reinforce and update a central pillar of the international economic system,” Wallenberg added.
There was a strong consensus at the Summit that the negotiations must be brought to a successful conclusion in the months ahead after six-and-a-half years of delays and missed deadlines. A deal can still be done. Though painfully slow, considerable progress has been made to date and there are many hard-won, trade-enhancing offers already on the table. These must not be lost.
The business leaders attending the Summit agreed to redouble their efforts when they returned home, to convince their government leaders to act swiftly and effectively to reach a final trade agreement.
The World Business Summit elected Victor Fung of Li & Fung Group of Cos as its first ICC Chairman from Hong Kong as the current chairman Marcus Wallenberg becomes Honorary Chairman of ICC. Rajat Kumar Gupta, who is senior partner emeritus of McKinsey & Co of New York, is now Vice-Chairman while John Beechey was elected Chairman and Carl Salans as interim Chairman of the ICC International Court of Arbitration.
