“31 TRILLION DOLLARS DEBT BURDEN STIFLING DEVELOPING NATIONS, SAYS UNCTAD CHIEF”
GREATRIBUNETVNEWS–UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Secretary-General, Rebeca Grynspan, has highlighted that a $31 trillion debt burden is hindering the development of developing countries. Speaking to UNCTAD’s 195 member states in Geneva, Grynspan emphasized the need to maintain the rules-based international trading system to prevent a damaging tariff war.
Key points from Grynspan’s address include:
– Debt Crisis : Developing nations face impossible choices between defaulting on debt or development.
– Tariff Escalation: Tariffs by major economies like the US have risen from 2.8% to over 20%.
– Trade Under WTO Rules: 72% of global trade still operates under WTO rules, which has helped avoid a domino effect of tariff escalation.
Grynspan stressed the importance of continued negotiation and reform of the international trading system to lift millions out of poverty through trade.
“Uncertainty is the highest tariff possible,” she said, adding that it “discourages investment, slows growth and makes trade as a path to development much harder”.
In Geneva, the UNCTAD top economist warned that global investment flows are retreating for the second year in a row, “eroding tomorrow’s growth”.
At the same time, today’s investment system favours projects in richer economies rather than developing nations, she continued, with one-off costs responsible for making one U.S. dollar “three times more expensive in Zambia than in Zurich”.
Grynspan also stressed that freight costs are now “too volatile” with landlocked countries and small island developing states hit with transport bills “up to three times the global average”.
And while AI offered the prospect of adding “trillions” to global GDP, the UNCTAD Secretary-General added that fewer than one in three developing countries have strategies to capture its benefits.
A staggering 2.6 billion people remain offline, most of them women in developing countries, UN data indicates.
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