Export controls risk exacerbating food crisis, WTO chief warns
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Governments risk repeating the mistakes of previous food crises by imposing export controls in the face of rising commodity and energy prices, says Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, head of the World Trade Organization. In an interview with the Financial Times, she said the world should learn lessons, especially from the crisis of 2007-2008, then caused by the drought in leading food producers.
“I do hope we have learned something” from the previous global food crisis in 2007-2008,” Okonjo-Iweala said, referring to a period in which problems were caused by droughts in key wheat and rice-producing countries, along with a surge in the cost of energy.
“The signs we see now don’t show that learning very much because we’re having the same situation of spiking food prices, spiking energy prices, and an emerging spiral,” she added.
“We should try not to compound the issues by having export restrictions put in place that may encourage others to put on their own export restrictions,” she said.
Governments with surplus stocks in products like vegetable oils and grains should release them on world markets, she said, although she declined to name specific countries.
Okonjo-Iweala, formerly Nigerian finance minister and World Bank managing director, said only around 12 WTO member countries had so far imposed export restrictions to keep food at home, which they are permitted to do under a loophole in WTO rules.
