(BERR) Joint statement by business secretary Peter Mandelson and CBI president Martin Broughton

Business leaders from G20 countries around the world have been meeting UK Government Ministers ahead of the London Summit on April 2nd.

We had a useful and constructive discussion and urged the G20 to achieve three things:

1. Urgently renew the commitment to conclude the WTO Round.

This is the best insurance policy the international community has against a retreat to protectionism; a successful Doha Round alone would insure against protectionist pressures that could cost the global economy as much as $170bn a year.

2. To increase the supply of trade finance.

International and government institutions need to step in to substitute private flows of trade finance which have been drying up. If left unchecked, this could restrain many hundreds of billions of dollars of global trade over the next two years.

3. To pursue the need for anti-protectionism across the globe.

While demand is a factor, protectionism could be playing a part in the fall in trade. We therefore call on G20 to reconfirm and strengthen their commitment not to bring in protectionist measures, reconfirming the outcomes of the Washington summit, but focussing also on non tariff measures such as subsidies, anti dumping action and licencing restrictions. We also agreed it was important to make sure that the monitoring of adherence to these commitments has realty.

As the London Summit draws near, we believe that the response of the G20 leaders must be decisive and wide-ranging, in the interests of our long-term prosperity.