Global governance
Business and the global economy
The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the world business organization, is pleased to submit this statement to the Heads of State and Government attending the G8 Summit at Heiligendamm, Germany (6 - 8 June 2007). The statement focuses on four issues of crucial importance to world business at the current time.
1. Doha trade negotiations: a last opportunity
World business, as represented by ICC, holds firmly to the conviction that the rules-based multilateral trading system, managed through the World Trade Organization (WTO), is one of the central pillars of international economic cooperation, with an impressive record of achievement.
2. Investment protectionism
Another form of protectionism has begun to stalk the global economy with a renewed vigour, namely, investment protectionism where governments introduce or threaten measures to block or impede the flow of cross-border investment under the pretext of protecting so-called strategic sectors of economic activity or of maintaining national security.
3. Energy policy
ICC welcomes the inclusion of energy efficiency on the agenda of the Heiligendamm Summit following the focus on climate change and energy security at Gleneagles and St. Petersburg.
4. Intellectual property and innovation
ICC welcomes the fact that product counterfeiting and copyright piracy has become a regular topic on the agenda of the annual G8 Summit meetings. We believe this attention at the highest level of government rightly reflects the gravity of the threat this phenomenon poses to economic and social welfare right across the world.
