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TRADE: G20 Gearing Up for Continued WTO Talks
By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Oct 22 (IPS) - The Group of 20 (G20), a voice for the developing
South in multilateral trade negotiations, plans to expand its focus beyond
the agricultural sector and seek closer ties to similar groups, according to
the bloc's coordinator and spokesman, Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso
Amorim.
The G20 is an alliance of larger developing countries - including China,
India and South Africa, as well as Brazil - that joined forces at the fifth
WTO (World Trade Organisation) ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico in
September 2003 to push for more open agricultural trade and oppose the farm
subsidies of the wealthy developed nations.
Since then, the bloc's members have continued to meet and work together
towards achieving greater balance between the industrialised and developing
worlds in multilateral negotiations.
The G20 met on Thursday in Geneva in a session that Amorim described as
"very interesting and rich in ideas," despite the relative lull in activity
since the intensive efforts of late July, when the foundations were laid for
discussing the guidelines to govern the final stage of the Doha Round of WTO
talks.
The Doha Round was launched in the capital of Qatar, in 2001, and was
originally supposed to be completed by the end of this year.
But the negotiations have been repeatedly delayed by disagreements over key
areas like agriculture, where the protectionist stance of wealthy
industrialised nations and the developing world's demands for an end to
trade barriers in the sector have made reaching any agreement impossible so
far.
The most resounding disaster was the WTO meeting in Cancun, where talks
collapsed largely under the pressure of the G20 and the group's insistence
that agricultural trade be a central focus, as an issue of primary
importance to the developing nations.
Amorim stressed that it is only normal that the G20 is experiencing a moment
of relative inactivity after the "climax" of the crucial WTO general council
meeting in July, which apparently saved the Doha Round from a definitive
collapse.
Negotiations will continue throughout the next year, and are scheduled to
culminate at the sixth WTO ministerial meeting, to be held Dec. 13-18, 2005
in Hong Kong.
Amorim said it is still far too early to predict whether further
negotiations will lead to major failure or success.
Furthermore, at the moment there is no way of knowing what the repercussions
will be of two major events occurring soon. One is the installation of a new
European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, which will
take over in early November. The other is the "important election in an
important country," as Amorim referred to the Nov. 2 presidential vote in
the United States.
In this climate of uncertainty as to the future course of negotiations, the
G20's main strategy has been to draw closer together, and one of the points
emphasised at Thursday's meeting in Geneva was "the importance of keeping
our unity," Amorim noted.
"Actually, one of the strengths of the G20 was precisely to maintain unity
despite our diversity in some aspects, although our common goal is to
eliminate the distortions, the big distortions, in agricultural trade," he
said.
Another key strategy in the G20's future endeavours will be reaching out to
the other blocs that have been formed by developing nations to address
different trade priorities.
One such group is the G90, which comprises the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific
(ACP) nations, the African Union, and the least developed countries (LDCs).
Another is the G33, an alliance of developing countries seeking safeguard
mechanisms for certain "special products" that are vital to the economies of
its members.
Some G20 countries are also members of these other groups, which makes it
easier to coordinate efforts, Amorim told reporters.
This cooperation and coordination will also be extended to groups that
include industrialised nations among their members, such as the Cairns Group
of agricultural exporting countries, led by Australia, which is also opposed
to trade restrictions in this sector.
Other initiatives were put forward as well, such as meetings with the
business communities in the group's member countries.
Meanwhile, during this break in negotiations, the G20 will concentrate on
technical-level work. "I think this is one of the areas where the G20 has
excelled," said Amorim.
"I think it's the first time that I've really seen the pulling together of
the capacities of the developing countries in a very concrete, very specific
and technically complex negotiation," he added.
"Now we have to move forward, technically, so that we can be on solid ground
politically."
Finally, the G20 meeting could not fail to address one of the most critical
issues facing the WTO in the coming months: the designation of a successor
to the current director-general, Supachai Panitchpakdi.
The WTO general council, which serves as the ruling body between ministerial
conferences, confirmed the procedure and timeline for the selection of a new
director-general this week.
Nominations will be accepted from WTO members until the end of December, and
this will be followed by a process of consultations, which will conclude
with the selection of a new director-general by the end of May 2005.
Amorim had announced two weeks earlier that Brazil intended to nominate its
current ambassador to the WTO, Luiz Felipe de Seixas Correa.
At the meeting on Thursday, a number of participants brought up the subject
of Seixas Correa's candidacy, and Amorim said that he "neither discussed nor
avoided the issue," although he did clarify that Brazil is not seeking G20
endorsement for its candidate.
The nomination of Seixas Correa had caused some friction with another Latin
American candidate, Uruguay's former ambassador to the WTO Carlos Pérez del
Castillo, who had announced his interest in the position several months
earlier.
Various sources have noted that the candidacy of Jaya Krishna Cuttaree, the
minister of foreign affairs, international trade and regional cooperation of
Mauritius, is also expected to be declared soon.
(END/2004)
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