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Seoul. Global trade this year is likely to fall by an “unprecedented” figure of more than 10 percent, the head of the World Trade Organization said on Monday.

Pascal Lamy said governments had made progress in tackling the worst economic downturn for many decades but much remained to be done.

“In February this year, the global economic downturn was peaking,” the WTO director general said here at a forum.

“Less than a year on, progress has been made but we are not yet out of the woods.” In this environment, he said, “pressure for protectionist actions with their illusory gains for the domestic economy, will not necessarily diminish any time soon.”

Future write-downs in the world financial system have now been cut to about $3 trillion, he said, citing an estimate by the International Monetary Fund. “The cleanup process has reached the half-way mark but this progress is still too slow,” Lamy said.

Meanwhile, Lamy urged WTO members to resist protectionist pressure in the wake of the economic crisis, but said hopes of an early deal to free up international commerce were uncertain.

Lamy said success in completing the Doha round of trade talks next year as scheduled was vital to signal business and consumer confidence, and would strengthen the hand of governments as they confront protectionism.

“This will not occur unless they are all ready for heavy political lifting at home,” he said, adding there would be a “crunch time meeting” in the first quarter to check if the goal was attainable.

Prospects for meeting the deadline remain uncertain, Lamy said. “The jury is still out until the end of the first quarter of next year.”

Little progress was made toward ending the impasse during a ministerial meeting held in Geneva last week.

The Doha round began in 2001, with a focus on dismantling obstacles to trade for poor nations by striking an accord that will cut agriculture subsidies and tariffs on industrial goods.

Deadlines to conclude the trade talks have been repeatedly missed.

Discussions have been dogged by disagreements on issues including how much the US and the European Union should reduce aid to their farmers and the extent to which developing countries such as India, China and South Africa should cut tariffs.

Lamy said developing states, which make up two-thirds of WTO members, suffered especially from protectionism.

“Our poor members have been hit short-term by the shrinking trade,” he said.

“They depend much more than others on trade to grow their economy and to reduce poverty, which is why fighting protectionism is even more important for them as it is for richer countries.”

Supachai Panitchpakdi, secretary general of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, said discussions on new multilateral fiscal regulations to avoid a repeat crisis should proceed in a fair manner.

“There cannot be a stable global economic governance without having both trade and finance regulated at the multilateral level,” he told a separate news conference on thesidelines of the Seoul forum.

Supachai said it would be necessary to stress equal treatment for member countries.

“So there should not be double standards in a way that rules are applied — one set of rules for industrialized countries or one set of rules for developing countries.

“They would all be subjected to the same rules.”

Agence France-Presse