WASHINGTON, June 16: President George Bush on Thursday said the strategy to defeat extreme poverty begins with trade. Speaking at the 2006 National Summit to end poverty, sponsored by the private-sector Initiative for Global Development (IDG), he said free trade was essential for reducing global poverty.Urging completion of Doha Round of trade talks, President Bush asked all countries to reduce trade barriers to make development aid more effective and to complete the Doha Development Agenda.

About 200 US business executives, civic leaders and policy experts in Washington attended the summit.

“The strategy to defeat extreme poverty begins with trade,”

Bush said, adding “prosperity as a result of trade is more likel — 10 times more likely to have a positive effect on somebody living in a poor society than just investment and grants.”

President Bush said other countries were restricting progress in promoting free trade.

Efforts successfully to complete the Doha round of trade talks are currently “rough sledding” for the United States, he said.

He called for Europe in the negotiations to make “tough decisions” to drop trade barriers in agriculture, for the Group of 20 (G-20) major industrialised nations to open up trade in manufacturing and for all nations to give more access to their markets.

Ministers of WTO member countries have set the end of 2006 as the goal of concluding the Doha Round of trade negotiations that began in November 2001.

He said the US already has proposed eliminating its tariffs, subsidies and other barriers to trade. “We expect other nations to do the same.”

Karan Bhatia, the deputy US Trade Representative, speaking at the summit, said the biggest challenge the US faces in advancing free trade is convincing developing countries to open their markets to exports from other developing countries.

More than 70 per cent of duties paid by developing countries are paid to other developing countries, reducing the amount of money these countries have to spend on lifting their people out of poverty, he said. —APP