A major march sponsored by organized labor is expected to bring 50,000 people downtown next Tuesday. While protests mount, it is hard to argue against the success of global trade. It has grown almost 20-fold since 1950, far outstripping the growth in world gross domestic product. Trade is freer than ever. The WTO is an increasingly popular club, having grown to 135 members this year with the admission of Estonia.
China is a likely member next year.
Almost 30 other countries, including Russia, are in the queue to join. The WTO report says economic conditions are more optimistic than a year ago, when the financial crisis in Asia was in full flower and there was concern about contagion and a deep recession. Disciplined macroeconomic policies and structural reform in the countries most affected by the crisis and open markets played their full role in making possible and supporting the ongoing recovery. Economic growth is expected to be about 3 percent this year, the WTO said, rising to 3.5 percent in 2000. If the cautious forecast is borne out, it will boost the level of average trade growth during most of the 1990s, although still fall below the boom years of 1994 to 1997.