At ICC's 35th World Congress, held June 6-9 in Marrakesh, Morocco, the world business community demanded "clear vision and real leadership" in support of economic growth and the improvement of living standards worldwide.

“Our conviction is that the expansion of international trade is one of the driving engines of economic and social progress,” declared Mr. Fourtou at the end of the well-attended congress.  “It cannot resolve all problems, but it is an effective tool to increase wealth, knowledge and mutual respect among civilizations.”

Addressed equally to the members of the World Trade Organization struggling to get the Doha round of trade talks back on track, Mr. Fourtou’s remarks and the “Marrakesh Declaration” they accompanied called multilateral agreements in the WTO indispensable to development of balanced trade relations between countries – especially between the North and South.

“The Doha round has to reach a conclusion as soon as possible,” he said.

The Marrakesh declaration said that, to reap all the benefits of globalization, good governance is vital.  Every country, ICC observed, is competing to attract international investment and to strengthen its private sector.  To do so requires effective, fair, competitive and respected regulation, while not ignoring such factors as security, human resources or infrastructure.

The latest biennial ICC world congress offered a timely and informative tour d’horizon of contemporary business, economic and political challenges.  Some other outcomes in Marrakesh included:

·         Business leaders called on governments to join them in creating the right conditions for information and communication technologies and the Internet to reach their full potential as engines of economic growth and social development.

·         Governments were urged to devote far more attention and resources to combat the rapidly growing piracy of intellectual property and production of counterfeit goods.

·         A “miracle sachet” which makes even the dirtiest water fit to drink, a company encouraging bee-keeping in rural Africa and a project to get Indian farmers surfing the Web were all recognized as recipients of the inaugural ICC-UNDP World Business Awards.

·         Shipowners called for coordinated naval patrols among South East Asian governments to counter the growing threat of piracy.

à You can access a complete round-up of developments at the ICC World Congress at: www.iccworldcongress.net.