Developing states reject expansion of WTO's Doha agenda
September 14, 2003
Johannesburg - Poor and developing countries, including South Africa, have rejected an attempt by rich nations to put new trade issues on the negotiating table in the Mexican resort city of Cancun, saying that this cannot happen until rich countries cut their agricultural subsidies significantly.
This is in line with the pessimistic prognosis of most pundits ahead of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) fifth ministerial meeting, which kicked off this week.
In what can be described as a true Mexican standoff, a group of 21 developing countries from Latin America, Asia and Africa that are home to 63 percent of all farmers and 51 percent of the world's population, have said that rules on trade facilitation, competition, investment and government procurement will not get on to the table until the European Union (EU) and other large produce subsidisers make world farm trade fairer.
In response, the EU has said that these so-called Singapore issues (after the city where the subject was first broached in 1996), which will benefit rich, services-oriented economies more than poor, resources-based countries, need to be included in the negotiations to give the 15-nation bloc room to manoeuvre on agriculture.
The main support for the EU's stance comes from Japan, Switzerland and South Korea, which say they need a fair playing field when their companies venture abroad.
Many developing countries have rejected the inclusion of the Singapore issues in the current round of negotiations, saying they would put unnecessary burdens on poor states.
The general feeling is that they should be left to a later trade round.
The agenda for the current development round of trade talks, agreed on in Doha in November 2001, was initially hailed as a breakthrough on the road to a fairer world trading system.
However, all the key mid-term deadlines agreed on in Doha have been missed and it now seems that the objective of having a trade deal signed and delivered by the end of next year remains a futile wish.
Missed deadlines include a resolution on how to implement fully agreements reached in the previous round of trade talks, which was supposed to have happened by June last year. The matter still has not been resolved.
The March deadline to agree on the structure of agricultural trade rules and the May deadline for non-agricultural trade were also missed. - Quentin Wray and Reuters
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