Trade Out of Poverty - a message from Ming

8.01.00am GMT Thu 4th Mar 2010

Many voters in South West Wiltshire are deeply concerned about the poorest countries and believe they will only achieve a decent standard of living for their people if rich countries like ours give them the opportunity to Trade Out of Poverty.

I've confirmed that I support the objectives of the Trade Out of Poverty campaign. At national level Michael Moore MP, Shadow Secretary of State for International Development and the Liberal Democrats have already shown their support.

You can see who else is supporting the campaign at http://www.tradeoutofpoverty.org/PPCSupport.aspx.

Trade Out of Poverty (TOP) is a new all-Party campaign jointly chaired by Clare Short, John Battle, Peter Lilley, Lord Hastings and Menzies Campbell. They aim to achieve for trade policy towards developing countries what popular campaigns did to persuade governments to commit to aid targets and drop debt burdens.

Ultimately trade is the only sustainable path to prosperity - one followed by the most successful developing countries, from Brazil to China and now from Mauritius to Vietnam. Unfortunately it is harder for the remaining least developed countries to follow in their footsteps since later comers have to compete with those ahead of them who have already acquired a critical industrial mass but still have low labour costs. In addition to this hurdle, they are excluded from rich countries' markets by tariffs, subsidies, and onerous trade rules. As a result, the remaining Low Income Countries, which have a fifth of the world's population, only account for one fiftieth of world trade.

Rich countries can and should act now - without waiting for the Doha Round - to remove the unnecessary obstacles preventing the poorest countries from trading out of poverty.

Campaigners will press the next British government to use its influence in the EU and the G20 to persuade our partners to implement TOP's five objectives:-

Open up rich country markets unconditionally to all the poorest countries

Simplify trade rules to let developing countries share in world trade

End rich country export and domestic subsidies which hit poor countries' trade

Help reduce tariffs between poor countries

Support investment in roads, ports and administrative structures that make trade possible