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Renato Ruggiero, WTO Director-General, introducing the Symposium, said that in some ways the dialogue on trade and development was an old one, because development was one of the central goals of the GATT. However, the dialogue was also new because, in the age of globalization, interdependence and instantaneous communications, the level of inequality between countries and people is becoming increasingly unacceptable. He noted that more than two billion people a third of humanity live on less than 2 dollars a day, 1.5 billion people lack access to fresh water, and 130 million children have never gone to school. The idea that billions are mired in poverty, while others grow richer, was not just unsustainable it was unconscionable. The second difference is that the role of developing countries in the trading system has changed profoundly. When the GATT was born there were just 23 members, and only 11 of these were from the developing world. Today the WTO had 134 Members, of which 80 per cent were developing, least developed or transition economies. Of the 30 candidates negotiating to join, practically all were developing economies or economies in transition. He said that developing countries are becoming more and more important to the health of the world economy. Between 1973 and 1997 the developing countries' share of manufactured imports into developed markets tripled-from 7.5 per cent to 23 per cent. This reflected the reality that the development challenge is no longer a challenge only for developing countries but should be a concern of the advanced economies as well.
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