July 30, 2003	Wednesday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 29, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, July 29: The developed world plays an important role in the negotiation process on agreements under World Trade Organization (WTO) regime, which resulted into discrimination against developing countries.

The rich countries are directly or indirectly putting pressures on the developing world to accept the modalities, favourable for the developed countries.

Delivering a lecture on “WTO negotiations: Policy options for developing countries”, Pakistan ambassador to UN, Munir Akram urged the developing countries including Pakistan to join hands to use their majority in the forthcoming ministerial conference at Cancun to get maximum benefits.

The lecture was organized by the Saarc chamber of commerce and industry here on Tuesday.

Mr Akram said at Cancun the Agreement on Agriculture (AOA) would be the most important issue. He said the AOA had institutionalized the trade distortion practices - subsidies and tariff protection of the developed countries.

The developing counties have a chance at the meeting to rebalance the agreement in favour of the developing countries in order to seek more rights and needs of the poor communities during the negotiations.

He said the developing countries should support the agreement on agriculture libaralization down to a level to protect the interest of their farmers.

He said due to highly subsidized export products of the developed countries, it could easily penetrate in the markets of the developing countries due to low tariffs.

He said the developing countries should demand safeguards on their products, which are important regarding food security and livelihood security.

The ambassador said in Pakistan 60 per cent people were involved in the agriculture practices and the cheap imports might harm their businesses.

In reply to a question, he said the AOA should also focus on the issue of high subsidy being provided by the developed countries to their farmers, which resulted into distortion in the international markets.

He further said due to the IMF adjustment programme, the developing countries, including Pakistan, were made bound to reduce the agriculture subsidies while the same was being provided by the developed countries.

Regarding the textile quota, he said it should be eliminated by 2005. However, he said it should not be replaced by some other forms of restriction arrangement, which might harm the developing countries.

He was of the opinion that Pakistan would enhance its earning from textile exports in the post-quota regime and as Pakistani textile products are more competitive in the international markets.