As talks enter a crucial stage at the Geneva-based World Trade Organisation (WTO) in what may be the last week of discussions before the chairs of two committees — agriculture (AG) and non-agriculture market access (NAMA) — may come up with some compromise texts in the last week of November.
That could become a basis for striking a deal on the much-awaited Doha Development Agreement (DDA) or may lead to a bitter collapse. The Doha round of trade talks was launched in the Qatar’s capital in November 2001.
There was a breakdown of talks in the summer of 2006 which led many observers to be sceptical of the entire process. However, sustained efforts by the membership led to a partial resumption of the talks in November 2006 and full resumption since January 2007 after the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum at Davos.
Meanwhile, the G20 group of developing nations of which Pakistan is a member will hold a ministerial meeting on November 15 in Geneva to discuss strategy to tariffs on agriculture negotiations that are proving the main stumbling block for the current round of global trade talks.
Brazil followed by India has taken a leading role in rallying the developing world to press rich countries into opening up their heavily protected and subsidised agriculture markets. At the same time, Brazil and other emerging economies have resisted pressure from the United States and European Union to lower their import duties on industrial goods.
Pakistan has also played a role in steering the contentious issues such as two coefficients for NAMA and a proposal for Special Products in Agriculture. Pakistan’s main objective in DDA is to get the maximum liberalisation of international trade through multilateral trade talks rather than bilateral solutions.
According to an official in Pakistan’s WTO mission, the main objective of G-20 ministerial meeting is to reinforce its position in the ongoing DDA negotiations in agriculture and strategise for upcoming process until the expected conclusion of modalities early next year. The group feels that it is time to reiterate importance of the pro- development outcome of DDA.
The official maintained that the G20 meeting demonstrates the bloc’s commitment to save the round from failure. “We think we are not very far from a positive result”. Indian Commerce Minister Kamal Nath said in New Delhi: “We are closer than ever before in closing the Doha round. We are at the last mile”.
Pakistan’s Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan, who played an active role in the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference may not participate in the planned meetings. It is true that Pakistan has a strong mission in Geneva to represent country but political backing and representation at such a high level makes a difference.
Analysts said the Geneva-based member- countries of the WTO sound less optimistic for the last couple of years—the US and EU want emerging developing countries—Brazil, India and South Africa to slash their industrial tariffs more deeply.
The developing countries argue that the agricultural market access proposals by Brussels, and especially the farm subsidy cuts offered by Washington, hardly merit deeper industrial tariff cuts than what they have already tabled. This situation has rather put the progress in the round on cold storage since the first Doha round surfaced.
In a meeting with a group of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) from various developing countries, who visited the Permanent Mission of Pakistan to the WTO in later part of October 2007, Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the WTO Dr Manzoor Ahmad outlined the state of affairs in DDA.
Ambassador said that Pakistan is a strong supporter of early conclusion of the round as it carries huge potential benefits for us. He clarified that we favour the flexibilities. Our approach is to pre-empt the potential mis-use of such flexibilities particularly against the other developing countries.
Issues discussed thus far in the farm trade talks include the ‘special products’ that developing countries will be allowed to shelter from the full force of tariff cuts for food and livelihood security and rural development concerns.
The G-33 developing countries, of which Pakistan is also a member, want to designate up to 20 per cent of agricultural tariff lines as ‘special’, and has called for fully exempting up to half of these from tariff cuts, with the rest subject to modest reductions. Many options are on the table to strike a deal on this controversial issue.
As talks enter a crucial stage at the Geneva-based World Trade Organisation (WTO) in what may be the last week of discussions before the chairs of two committees — agriculture (AG) and non-agriculture market access (NAMA) — may come up with some compromise texts in the last week of November.
