December 16, 2006	Saturday	Ziqa'ad 24, 1427

ISLAMABAD, Dec 15: Speakers at a seminar urged the South Asian countries to adopt a common position on various agreements currently under negotiations in the WTO in a bid to protect the interests of their consumers.

South Asian countries, they cautioned, should be defensive in their negotiations so that they could have more space for implementation of these agreements. They expressed these views at the conclusion of a three-day conference of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) on “missing links in sustainable development: South Asian perspective” here on Friday.

The delay in the Doha development agenda, they said, would greatly harm the interests of the developing countries.

Dr Abid Suleri observed that there was never a win-win situation in the WTO, and Pakistan, therefore, needs to focus on areas where it has a comparative advantage.

He pointed out that Pakistan is not only a strategic partner in the war on terrorism, but a direct beneficiary of growth in EU and US as these are its major trading partners.

Dr Suleri questioned whether it was in the interest of developing countries to have a common position in the WTO and discussed the implications of the increased number of regional trade agreements and bilateral trade agreements this context.

An Indian researcher Pradeep Mehta spoke on suspension of the Doha round talks: the cost implications for India’ and acknowledged that at such negotiations, there was always a give and take.

He recommended that domestic reforms should be benchmarked on whether they can lead to a relatively more pro-poor growth or not, if one has to link pro-development outcomes of trade negotiations with pro-poor growth outcomes. He also said that opportunity costs needed to be taken into account in these negotiations.

In his presentation, FPCCI representative Engineer Jabbar highlighted that there was less interaction of the government with stakeholders, particularly the civil society people, before going for multilateral negotiations.

He cited many examples where government avoided interaction with private sector, particularly the civil society at the WTO ministerial conference.

Discussing the pitfalls of the white revolution for small dairy farmers, Roshan Malik of the Southern Illinois University identified seasonal supply, poor insemination, lack of proper feed, poor collection system, food safety system and the lack of government support as the main reasons for the low and poor productivity in the dairy sector of Pakistan.

Establishment of model dairy farms, consisting of research and sale centres, cooperative dairy farms rather than big commercial farms, are the key for development of small milk producers of Pakistan, he said.

Commenting on the papers presented on supply chain, Dr Abid Q. Suleri, said the trade and marketing trends in the world were changing drastically. He stressed the need for functional and institutional governance and democracy and the politicization of cooperatives.

Two researchers, Ms Bryn Gay and Chatrini Weerratunge, focused on conceptualizing the principles of participatory economics, corporativism, fair trade and corporate social responsibility and called for development of an alternative global, social-economic justice framework to foster the climate of participation, fair-pricing and equitable partnership for small-scale producers.

According to their report, around 2.6 billion people worldwide are dependent on agricultural based livelihoods, with a majority of them living in poor rural economies of developing countries. In developing countries, poor producers and farmers have inherited market imperfection, including lack of market access, lack of access to credit, inability to switch to other sources of income generation, they said.