In a conference held in Chile, World Bank president Robert Zoellick has warned South American finance officials of the downfalls of adopting a protectionist economic policy. The speech will have been of particular interest to leading figures in the online gambling industry, many of who are affected by similar European policy that has seen member nations seek to protect their state-run monopolies.

Zoellick asked South American figures to heed the historical warnings from the last Great Depression, where policies that sought to promote domestic industry over imports effectively lengthened the recession. Similar laws have been applied lately in Europe, with Germany, Sweden and Italy all seeking to protect their state-run gambling bodies from foreign competition.

The US is one nation that has fallen into the same line, according to Zoellick. "It seems appealing in countries to buy their own national products, but that's the road to the problem that exacerbated the downturn in the 1930s and led to the Great Depression." The American positioning has already agitated the World Trade Organization, who called for fines to be imposed on the USA for its infractions on WTO agreements. The European Union has also asked for similar measures after US policy ran against EU non-member policies.

Source – Gambling Online Magazine

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