The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) is committed to a strong and effective WTO, one whose members collectively negotiate the lowering of trade barriers and the strengthening of global trade rules.

ICCs World Trade Agenda initiative includes a longer-term proposal that governments should begin discussions towards a multilateral framework on investment.

With more than 3,000 agreements on investment already in place, it is time to move towards a single multilateral framework to facilitate cross-border investment, which will encourage to economic growth and job creation.

The five recommendations developed under ICC initiative could achieve tangible outcomes by the end of 2013, to harvest gains from the WTOs Doha Development Round.

These are: conclude a trade facilitation agreement, implement duty-free and quota-free market access for exports from least-developed countries, phase out agricultural export subsidies, renounce food export restrictions and expand trade in IT products and encourage growth of e-commerce worldwide, an ICCB editorial said Thursday.

The WTO 9th Biannual Ministerial Conference is taking place in Bali, on 3-6 December. The race to agree on a deal at the Bali Conference is not only an opportunity to slash the cost of shipping goods around the world.

It also represents what many experts see as the last chance to restore confidence in the WTOs ability to reform global trade rules, according to the editorial of the current ICCB News Bulletin of International Chamber of Commerce-Bangladesh released today.

If there is no deal in Bali, the risk for the WTO is that major trading powers, which are already spending much more energy on bilateral deals than on the push for a global agreement, would give up for good.

Some experts say that these could foster the growth of rival trading blocs and deepen divisions, the opposite of what the WTO was meant to achieve.

For the past 60 years, trade has been a driver of growth and employment. This engine of the world economy is threatened by the stalemate in multilateral trade negotiations.

The increase in trade and investment restrictions fueled by the global economic downturn is damaging the business climate and prospects for recovery, precisely when global trade and investment liberalization could provide a debt-free and much-needed boost to world economic growth.