ISLAMABAD, Aug 19: A three-day conference on WTO ended on Thursday on a positive note that South Asia had good options to get maximum benefits from the multilateral trading regime in the times to come but the region will have to open up and liberalize its respective trading regimes.

The conference, which brought together government officials, civil society and academic experts from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, was held from August 17-19.

The conference was organized by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Oxfam GB, Consumer Unity and Trust Society (CUTS) and South Asian on Trade, Environment and Economics (SAWTEE) on "WTO Post-Cancun Developments: Options for South Asia".

Chairing the closing session, General Secretary CUTS, Pardeep Mehta said the aim of the conference was to build capacity of South Asian civil society groups and research organizations regarding WTO issues.

The outcome of this event was to continue these kinds of exercises for participatory approach and common positions on trade and agriculture related issues during WTO negotiations.

Ratnikar Adhikari of South Asian Society Network on International Trade Issues (SACSNITI) from Nepal said SACSNITI objectives were to conduct research, raise awareness and build advocacy campaigns, documentation and bridging research and policy gaps.

The network, he said, was developing a database on biodiversity resources but SDPI had done a tremendous job and was one step ahead to develop a database website in this regard.

Rashid Kaukab from South Centre, Geneva, said South Asian countries should carry out research work in different sectors to protect their interest in negotiations. During the discussions, all participants expressed happiness that the stalemate of Cancun that had threatened the very medium term future of the WTO, had come to an end and that Doha Development Agenda was back on track.

The participants expressed the opinion that the July 31 agreement had resulted in gains for developing countries. They, however, cautioned that some aspects of the text were a cause for concern and further that many of the gains promised by the framework could materialize only if good work was done on the specific negotiations to come.

They felt that if the WTO process had not been reinstated many developing countries would have had to waste their negotiation resources in entering into many bilateral and regional trading arrangements.

The participants expressed satisfaction that at long last export subsidies of every kind would be committed to a time-bound elimination. They, however, voiced their concerns that large domestic agricultural subsidies given by several developed countries would continue to distort markets.

While the framework agreement had addressed this issue to some extent, concern was expressed that there might be an expansion of blue box support and shuffling of subsidies between boxes while not reducing the overall level of trade distorting subsidies.

The participants also voiced the concern that the newly introduced concept of sensitive products might impair market access for agri products of export interest to developing countries.

In order to fully utilize the benefits conferred by 'Special Products' for developing countries, South Asian countries need to identify what products need to be classified as Special Product to protect the interests of South Asian farmers.

All South Asian countries would also need to take into account the interests of those countries in the region for whom agriculture was not that important as a trade issue. The participants expressed the happiness that the Singapore issues were now off the table, but believed that the countries needed to explore the benefits of engaging in these issues at both bilateral and regional levels.

They also expressed disappointment that the agreement had not gone far enough in the services obligations by developed countries. Services was a key area of interest for developing countries especially in the case of Cross Border temporary movement of labour also known as MODE 4 services.

The developed countries have continued to be protective in opening their labour markets up while being aggressive against developing countries in the case of goods and agriculture products.

South Asia, which had high proportion of both skilled and unskilled labour, was interested in MODE 4 services liberalisation by developed countries. The participants also noted that with the quota systems going out, the developed countries would now try new protectionist measures such as the imposition of indiscriminate trade defence measures like anti-dumping duties and anti-subsidy duties.

They also noted that there were several outstanding issues like implementation issues and Special and Differential Treatment Issues.