It requires protection of human rights and gender equality. But poverty in all its forms is also the greatest challenge to the international community and we will be judged by our response to our most vulnerable members. Poor countries need to grow their way out of poverty. Trade is the key engine for growth but currently developing country products face many obstacles in entering rich country markets. For example, the 49 least developed countries, representing 10.5 per cent of the world population, have less than 1 per cent of world exports.
Open markets can play an important role in lifting billions of people out of abject poverty.
And the most effective way to achieve these openings is by launching a new round. There is another argument, an historical one that I have already touched on. The multilateral trading system works. The last 50 years has seen unparalleled prosperity and growth and more has been done to address poverty in these last 50 years than in the previous 500. Let me add, experience shows, and studies confirm, that those countries that are more open to trade, like South Korea and Japan, grow faster than those that aren't.