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GEA
and Economic Development
Express Delivery and Free Trade
Members of the GEA support the efforts of the
World Trade Organization and its member states to remove barriers to trade.
Free trade promotes innovation and competition, generates economic growth, fosters
economic freedom, and promotes dissemination of democratic values. Because of
trade liberalization since World War II, the world in which we live today is
exponentially richer than it was at the midpoint of the last century, with greater
opportunities for citizens of all nations to improve their standards of living.
A study released by the World Bank in December
of 2001 shows that 24 developing countries that increased their integration
into the world economy over two decades ending in the late 1990s achieved higher
growth in incomes, longer life expectancy and better schooling. These countries,
home to some 3 billion people, enjoyed an average 5 percent growth rate in income
per capita in the 1990s compared to 2 percent in rich countries. Many of these
countries -such as China, India, Hungary and Mexico- have adopted domestic policies
and institutions that have enabled people to take advantage of global markets
and have thus sharply increased the share of trade in their GDP. These countries
have been catching up with the rich ones – their annual growth rates increased
from 1 percent in the 1960s to 5 percent in the 1990s. People in these integrating
countries saw their wages rise, and the number of people in poverty declined.
GEA members are proud of their contributions to
creating a modern global economy and making it accessible to all. Express delivery
services are facilitators of industry and trade, and are an essential component
of a modern infrastructure. GEA members have and continue to make significant
contributions to the growth of developing economies, enabling their manufacturers
and traders to engage competitively in international trade and to deal with
the demanding timeframes of the global economy. Members of the GEA have seen
at first hand the benefits that trade can bring to nations and their citizens.
Express delivery operators are facilitators of
economic activity; they enable other businesses to do business more efficiently
and competitively. Indeed, one of the most important contributions the express
industry makes to the economic development is through its impact on the capabilities
and competitiveness of other sectors of the economy. As a result, the costs
of restrictions on express services are not limited to the loss in output from
that sector. By forcing some firms to relocate and others to become somewhat
less competitive, national output overall is lower in the long run than it has
the potential to be. The short-run impact of such restraints is even more pronounced:
as firms close down their operations, unemployment increases, and a significant
proportion of the capital stock – especially in the most affected sectors
– would pass out of use.
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