KARACHI, Nov 5: Dr Tariq Banauri, a well known scholar emphasised on Tuesday that the fifth WTO ministerial meeting, scheduled in September 2003, offers both opportunities and challenges to developing countries like Pakistan.

“We need to maximise the opportunities to include our issues of sustainable development, capacity building and environmental matters in the agenda,” he suggested while addressing, as a keynote speaker, at a workshop on “Trade and Sustainable Development” organized jointly by the federal commerce ministry and Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry on Tuesday.

“Let us strive to find solutions to the challenges that are coming up,” he stressed while pointing out that there was no need either to support or oppose globalization.

“Globalization,” he made it clear, “is a reality that we will have to deal with all through our lifetime, therefore, the best course is to chart out a way in which we can make the future of our children secure and comfortable.”

Dr Banauri said the Doha Declaration last year marked a significant turn around and he made specific reference to three clauses 31, 32 and 33 that amply declare that environment can no longer be isolated from the international trade agenda.

“Future negotiations will focus on exactly this issue, representing both threats and opportunities,” he remarked.

He urged Pakistan government and all Southern countries to start defining their agenda proactively. Sustainable development can provide the foundation for such a proactive agenda based on which a new negotiating position can be evolved.

Dilating at length on the linkages and conflicts between WTO and Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEA), he said WTO remains a highly bureaucratic organization with no transparency, and that it does not encourage participation of the civil society. The MEA on the other hand is a transparent arrangement.

The WTO came into existence as a single institution on January 1, 1995 on conclusion of the eighth round of the multilateral trade negotiations under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). It was a set of agreements that apply to all the members in a package deal.

He said that member countries have lost their sovereignties on signing of WTO because they have been asked to frame policies and laws in accordance with the WTO package in which signatories have been asked to give most favoured nation (MFN) status to all other members and treat at par all goods and services that enter their territories.

Yet, there are certain safeguards within these provisions which can be exploited to the advantage of the developing countries if they manage to work out a sound negotiating position.

There are over 200 MEAs, most of them do not contain any provisions to curtail or promote international trade specifically. About 20 MEAs do contain some reference to international trade. Pakistan has ratified seven of such MEAs. The MEAs he said arise out of a history of South friendly international negotiations and embody core principles favouring developing countries.

Dr Banauri traced the genesis of Declaration of Human Rights charter in 1948, 1962 De Colonisation resolution of the United Nations and other agreements in which the sovereignty of nations on their respective natural resources have been accepted as a right.

Earlier Engineer M. A. Jabbar, the chairman, FPCCI Committee on WTO, in his speech pointed out the threat to Pakistan’s industry because of trade liberalization.

A deputy secretary of the Commerce Ministry of WTO wing informed the audience of the steps being taken by government to create awareness on WTO related issues.