European Parliament
A6-0179/2006
Danutė Budreikaitė (ALDE ),
rapporteur for the opinion of the Committee on Development.
(LT)
It is a well known fact that fair trade can be an effective means of reducing poverty. However, in the last 10 years, the proportion of world trade represented by the poorest countries, trading mostly in low added value products – agricultural raw materials and extracted natural resources, has decreased.
In order to eradicate poverty, first of all, radical policy changes are needed in both industrialised and developing countries so that the structural causes of poverty are removed.
To achieve this, it is not enough to put fair trade rules, bilateral and multilateral trade relations into practice and improve WTO rules, but we must also develop trade relations between developing countries, the South-South dimension.
In the future, economic development will have a decisive influence on the reduction of poverty, especially investment in small and medium business, which provides the local market in developing countries with goods and services and creates higher added value, and offers opportunities for world trade.

