Roberto Azevedo Quotes

Brazil, Diplomat
October 3, 1957

Roberto Carvalho de Azevêdo is a Brazilian diplomat and the current Director-General of the World Trade Organization. Azevêdo was elected to succeed Pascal Lamy as Director-General of the World Trade Organization in May 2013. He assumed office on 1 September 2013. He is paid a salary of 300,000 Swiss francs and an allowance of 200,000.

We have to learn how to work within the limits that are possible, not what is desirable.

Roberto Azevedo
- Work
- Learn
- Limits
New technologies, innovative management, higher productivity, displacements in the labour market, increased migration - these are all provoking major economic, social, and political shifts. These shifts need to be better understood if we are to address them in a positive and effective manner.

Roberto Azevedo

One thinks that one is winning when we slap tariffs or introduce barriers to imports from another country, and we think we win. But you lose when you export because the other countries are going to raise tariffs as well. They're going to introduce barriers as well. So you win with one hand and you lose with the other.

Roberto Azevedo
- Win
- Lose
- Barriers
Trade liberalization can be contagious, and the opening of markets regionally can spark progress multilaterally as well.

Roberto Azevedo
Each blockage is a blockage. Each impasse is an impasse. You have to find a solution; there is no recipe that fits each one of them.

Roberto Azevedo
In most negotiations, you can't attribute success or failure in negotiations to one side.

Roberto Azevedo
I believe that trade is essential for economic growth and development around the world, but I also believe that trade is imperfect.

Roberto Azevedo
- Growth
- Economic
- Trade
We cannot look backwards. What we have to do is raise our heads, look forward, roll up our sleeves and work.

Roberto Azevedo
- Work
- Look
- Backwards

Trade is not the cause for unemployment. In fact, the biggest drivers for unemployment are innovation and increased productivity. It has nothing to do with trade.

Roberto Azevedo
The best thing we can do to secure the future of the global system, trading system, is to redouble the efforts to improve the system, to reform the system.

Roberto Azevedo
- Future
- System
- Reform