South Korea is pushing for the G20 countries actively to support a moratorium on new import tariffs at next month's meeting, according to President Lee Myung-bak.
Mr Lee, writing in a document obtained yesterday by the Financial Times, said last year's declaration in Washington had featured a commitment to a standstill on new trade barriers, but he complained countries from the world's 20 leading economies had reneged, using the global downturn as an excuse.
“The global recession is putting pressure on political leaders to resort to protectionist measures in trade as well as finance. This is in the interest of neither advanced nor emerging economies,” Mr Lee said in a publication on the G20 by the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto.