By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Jul 22 2002 (IPS)

The trade questions of greatest interest to the countries of the developing South are far behind schedule in the multilateral negotiations under way at the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

It will be very difficult to meet the deadlines established for advancing discussions about special and differential treatment for the poorest countries and about the opening of the markets of the industrialised North to textile products, warn negotiators involved in the WTO talks.

“Developing countries perceive lack of enthusiasm on the part of certain members to discuss issues that are of high priority” to the nations of the South, stated the head of the delegation from India, K. M. Chandrasekhar.

Furthermore, there are many examples of “unilateral protectionist action” by industrialised countries “when their own industries are threatened in any way,” he added.

The WTO ministerial conference last November launched what is known the Doha Round of multilateral talks and set Jul 31 as a deadline for the institution’s general council to receive a report with recommendations on the authorisation of special and differentiated trade treatment standards.

The document must also include proposals for additional mechanisms aimed at boosting trade for developing countries.

The WTO Committee on Trade and Development, presided by Jamaican diplomat Ransford Smith, is in charge of drafting a report that will be palatable for the 144 member states of the world trade system.

However, sources close to the negotiations say it will be impossible to reach that goal in the few days remaining before the deadline, due to the complexity of the matter and because the committee must review more than 80 proposals.

Chandrasekhar did not hide his disgust with the delays, saying, “we have as yet not been able to substantively discuss even one of them.”

The principle of special and differentiated treatment is based on the fact that not all members of the WTO hold equal economic power and that they face an array of different problems.

But in practice the principle “has changed beyond all recognition,” according to the independent humanitarian organisation Oxfam, based in Britain.

“Under most WTO agreements, the only concession granted to developing countries is a slightly longer timeframe for implementation,” commented Céline Charveriat, Oxfam’s representative in Geneva.

The other trade issue that has been put off involves rules on textile trade, also stipulated by the Doha Declaration to have a Jul 31 deadline.

The trade ministers gathered in Doha last year entrusted the WTO Council for Trade in Goods to present recommendations for the best method to calculate an increase in quotas of the markets of the North for imports of textile products from the developing South.

But Peter Allgeier, deputy U.S. trade representative, stated outright that his country would not allow the consensus the Council would need to approve the recommendations before the deadline.

The U.S. textile and clothing industry has already made major adjustment efforts, which have cost the country a half-million jobs, Allgeier said last week in Geneva.

Textiles and apparel constitute the manufactured exports of greatest value for developing countries.

The quota system now in place restricts such products now entering the markets of Canada, United States, European Union and Norway.

But the WTO Agreement on Textiles and Clothing established a timeline for the gradual elimination of those quotas between 1995 and 2005.

“Unfortunately, importing countries have exploited every loophole in the agreement, and a few more, in order to delay liberalisation” of their markets, said Charveriat.

The agreement reflects the inequality of power in the negotiations, said the Oxfam representative. The elimination of quotas involved “traps”, she said, adding that the wealthier importing countries “prioritised the ‘liberalisation’ of those categories of products that developing countries hardly export, such as parachutes.”

The group of most powerful countries at the WTO, known as “The Quad” (United States, European Union, Japan and Canada), hold the answer to the problems leading to the failure to meet the Jul 31 deadline, said a Latin American trade negotiator who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“Hopefully, they will come up with something concrete in the short term if they do not want to block the whole process,” said the source.

The delay in resolving the implementation of special and differentiated treatment and lifting the quotas on textile products is closely related to the broader process of the Doha Round, which includes negotiations on farm and services trade and market access for non-agricultural products.

The EU pulled out the stops in its efforts to convince the WTO to set Mar 31, 2003, as the deadline for discussing the modalities of market access negotiations for non-agricultural products, which include manufactured goods and minerals.

Europe’s insistence on the matter is due to the fact that an agreement on the standards for agricultural talks must also be reached by that date. Farming is the economic sector of greatest interest to the 15-member bloc because its common policy of heavily subsidising farming is at stake.

The EU strategy consists of combining negotiating areas in order to have more elements at hand to play in the talks when its farm policy comes under fire, said the Latin American negotiator.

However, the WTO resolved that Mar 31 should be reserved for presenting rules that will guide the talks on market access for non-agricultural goods.

The concrete discussion will be postponed until May 31, 2003, when the fate of the first phase of the agricultural talks will already have been decided.

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