ISLAMABAD, Nov 21: The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) could not get the stalled WTO negotiations move forward as most of the member countries were reluctant to agree to genuine reduction in all forms of trade distorting measures.

Informed sources in Islamabad, who are watching and monitoring the negotiations, told Dawn on Monday that Apec members who met in South Korea recently failed to develop a consensus on the contentious issues like agriculture and non-agriculture market access (NAMA).

Moreover, in Geneva, the draft text on agriculture and NAMA negotiations expected on Friday (Nov 18) from the chairs could not be produced because there was confusion over the WTO process. On the one hand, the Hong Kong ministerial conference is not likely to bring any tangible breakthrough in the negotiations, while on the other hand they are also trying to produce a draft for the ministerial conference. It was expected that the chairs would produce the draft during the current week.

Aftab Alam Khan, a WTO expert working for Actionaid Pakistan, told Dawn: “Had the Apec leaders succeeded in bringing the issues of poor people at the heart of any outcome of the Doha round, we would have been encouraged.”

He said the successful outcome of the Doha round would depend on the genuine development outcome of the round. The current negotiation packages serve only rich countries. The recent offers by the EU and the US to reduce subsidies were just an illusion, he added.

According to an Actionaid estimate, the US currently gave $25 billion a year in domestic farm subsidies, but after implementing its proposal, the country would still give $17-27 billion subsidies a year. Likewise, the EU currently gives around 64 billion euros annually. Under its current proposal, the EU could still give 55-58 billion euros. So there is no real reduction in subsidies, Mr Khan adds.

The Actionaid calls for re-writing the trade rules that lift 2.4 billion people in Asia Pacific, South Asia, Africa and Latin America out of poverty.

Apec in the text draft agreed that the Doha round must be successfully concluded by the end of 2006 in order to achieve an ambitious and overall balanced outcome. They also agreed that developed nations must eliminate all forms of export subsidies by 2010 and call for breaking the current impasse in agricultural negotiations, particularly on the issue of market access.

Dr Abid Suleri of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) said that due to protectionism approaches by the EU and the US, the upcoming WTO ministerial talks seemed to remain inconclusive.

On the role of Pakistan, he said: “We have to maintain a fine balance between expressing our solidarity with developing countries and protecting our national interest by working as a bridge to seek solution of the problems.”