They claim that the current trade-regime is dominated by the world’s richest countries, i.e. Europe, the USA, Canada and Japan which together account for the majority of world trade. Their influence on multilateral agendas and policies of world financial institutions is said to be used to pressurize southern governments into deals which are bad for their own economies. At the same time, the USA and the EU still protect their own markets against cheap exports from developing countries which is against WTO-rules. Over these issues, southern governments left the negotiations at the last WTO-ministerial in Cancún, 2003, and made the meeting a total failure.

Not only globalization critics claim that the WTO’s agenda causes poverty in wide parts of the world. The commercialization of basic services such as water has excluded millions from supply and caused widespread unrest i.e. in South America. New patenting laws which allow international companies to lay their hands on herbs, plants and crops having been kept and used by traditional societies for ages had a similar effect. Forced economic competition in southern countries between local companies and well experienced trans-national corporations has furthermore led to a loss of jobs and economic power.

In the run-up to Hong Kong, it is yet unclear what way governments will go. For HBF, it is of utmost importance to follow the negotiations inside the WTO, to make people’s voices heard and to work on reform ideas within the WTO or alternatives to the current trade-regime, i.e. within the EcoFair Trade Dialogue.