WTO projects global tade to grow at 3.7 pct ''12 

(MENAFN - Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) World Trade Organization's (WTO) deputy Director General Valentine Sedanyoye Rugwabiza said Sunday global trade was projected to grow at only 3.7 percent in 2012 compared to five percent last year.

Addressing the UNCTAD XIII Conference, Rugwabiza said global balance of power was changing and the family of nations was struggling to develop joint responses to challenges affecting them all.

However, it was not the time for excessive pessimism as some recovery was being seen, she said.

While much more remained to be done, developing countries would likely account for more than half of global trade in 2012, and improvements had been seen in basic health and nutrition in many places around the world, she added.

Though trade was a substantial part of growth, it did not work in isolation, Rugwabiza said.

"Trade cannot deliver alone, but there is no possible growth without trade" as a central part of any development strategy, she said.

Meanwhile, President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Abdulwahed Al-Radhi said the Arab Spring helped understand the strategies that should be adopted as well as risks and weaknesses of economic and social policies around the world.

Addressing a session of UNCTAD, Al-Radhi said good governance should have rules in politics, law and administration which encouraged development, protect human rights and give individuals freedom of contribution to decision-making.

He said experience has proven that even most prestigious democracies could suffer from "democratic deficit" when it came to supervision and running the economy.