Speech by Mr. Angel Gurría, OECD Secretary-General
Meeting of G8 Employment and Labour Ministers: "Shaping the Social Dimension of Globalisation"
Minister Müntefering, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is a great honour for me to be the keynote speaker at your first session. The social dimension of globalisation will loom large at the annual OECD Ministerial meeting in Paris on the 15-16 May. We have done much work on this topic and I will summarise some of our main findings and policy recommendations.
First, the current stage of globalisation is unprecedented. World exports of manufactures now amount to an unprecedented 30% of the world's GDP, with a large share of these exports originating from emerging economies. Brazil, China, India and Russia currently account for 45% of the world's labour supply, compared with less than one fifth for all OECD countries. They are also increasingly open to trade and investment –for instance, over the past 15 years, total trade grew by over 50% as a proportion of GDP in Russia, it more than doubled in Brazil and India and nearly doubled in China.
See full Speech.
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