Rising unemployment is the biggest threat to free trade and could spark greater protectionist policies around the globe, Reuters qouted the head of the World Trade Organisation as saying on Thursday. WTO Director General Pascal Lamy, who is attending a meeting of Asia-Pacific trade and finance ministers in Singapore, told broadcaster CNBC that he did not expect an improvement in the job situation in the next one or two years. "I think the biggest threat is in the deterioration of the jobs market where unemployment is rising hard, then inevitably protectionist functions appear," Lamy said when asked what was the biggest challenge to free trade. Jobless queues have jumped across the industrialised world since the global economic crisis erupted a year ago and have been a prime reason nervous governments have resisted calls to start winding back stimulus measures. -- SPA
