DEVELOPMENT: Poorest Countries Highlight Issues for Cancun Meeting

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Stefania Bianchi

BRUSSELS, Aug 5 2003 (IPS) - Ministers from some of the world’s poorest countries are determined to make their voices heard at next month’s conference of the World Trade Organisation.

Leaders from all over the world will meet in Cancun, Mexico, September 10-14 to discuss the progress of the Doha Development Round. The African, Caribbean and Pacific states, a group of 78 mostly Least Developed Countries (LDCs), are determined not to be left out in the cold.

The General Secretariat of the ACP Group of States has highlighted a number of key issues that need to be addressed at the Fifth Ministerial Conference in Cancun.

Among these are the Doha Work Programme, TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) and public health, the Singapore Issues and the decision-making process of the Round.

The ACP states are urging rich countries to pull down trade barriers in the farm sector, eliminate subsidies for agricultural exports and strengthen provisions that allow poorer countries to shield domestic markets from foreign competition.

The call was made at the sixth meeting of ACP trade ministers last week in Brussels. The deliberations were also attended by top EU officials such as EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy.

With less than a month to go before Cancun, both parties agreed to work together to ensure the right balance between market opening and rules, taking into account the particular circumstances of ACP countries, especially the poorest countries and landlocked and island states.

The EU resolved to work hand in hand to ensure due attention to the Doha Round development objectives by striking the right balance between tighter global trade rules and market liberalisation, and taking the particular situation facing ACP states given their level of development and problems they encounter in meeting their WTO obligations.

Lamy assured that the ACP countries would not be forgotten.

”Both the EU and ACP countries consider the development dimension as the key element of the Doha Agenda. Whether on agriculture, on industrial tariffs or on access to medicines we must ensure that we respond to the concerns and expectations of developing countries,” he said.

The Doha Round was launched almost two years ago, but WTO negotiations have made little progress. One of the main stumbling blocks has been the gridlock on divisions over how to liberalise trade in farm goods, and some fear that agriculture will again overshadow the Cancun meeting.

In the recent weeks much of the preparation for Cancun has been blighted by an ongoing row over agricultural subsidies.

U.S. and EU trade officials insist that the success of the global talks in Mexico will hinge on the other party’s commitment to cut billions of dollars in farm subsidies.

The U.S. has increased pressure on the EU to further reform its agricultural policy.

Last week the two sides resolved to draft a joint proposal on farm trade as part of the effort to revamp global trading rules.

The proposal will be presented August 11 at the WTO in Geneva, where officials from the 146 members will meet in preparation for the September meeting.

The ACP ministers said progress in the area of agriculture was ”essential”, adding that ”agriculture is of critical importance to the economic development of the ACP states and holds the potential to lift millions of people out of poverty”.

The ACP also urged the WTO to strengthen provisions that allow developing countries to opt out of certain elements of a global trade deal. Developing countries say this ”special and differential treatment” is necessary to protect budding industries from foreign competition.

The ministers said they were determined to defend arrangements with the EU, which give their farmers preferential access to the European market. The EU’s highly protectionist sugar regime has recently come under attack from Australia, Brazil and Thailand.

The EU and the ACP states also noted that any further moves towards the free market or tightening of WTO rules must be achieved in a balanced and fair manner in order to promote sustainable economic growth and make the global trading system more predictable.

This, in turn, would help to tackle the challenges of globalisation more effectively and promote sustainable development.