TRADE: G22 Warms Up for Post-Cancun WTO Talks

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Oct 2 2003 (IPS) - The group of developing countries known as G22, united in condemnation of hefty farm subsidies in the United States and European Union, is preparing to continue WTO negotiations despite the debacle of the ministerial conference last month in Cancun.

The group of developing countries known as G22, or G20+, united in condemnation of hefty farm subsidies in the United States and European Union, is already preparing to continue WTO negotiations despite the debacle of the ministerial conference last month in Cancun.

The new bloc constitutes a solid, serious force that is well aware of how it should advance in negotiating agricultural trade, said a source close to the World Trade Organisation.

The G22 held meetings Thursday in Geneva to assess the situation after the thwarted outcome of the Fifth WTO Ministerial Conference three weeks ago in the Mexican Caribbean resort of Cancun.

The first discussion involved the core countries of the G22: Argentina, Brazil, China, India and South Africa. Later, the full membership gathered at the WTO headquarters to hammer out the strategy the group will follow in the broader negotiating process.

Uruguayan diplomat Carlos Pérez del Castillo, serving this year as chairman of the WTO General Council, has been holding consultations since last week in order to lay the groundwork for relaunching the negotiations after the serious setbacks in Cancun.

The WTO’s mandate, issued by the prior ministerial conference in Doha, Qatar, in 2001, is to negotiate and reach agreements on trade liberalisation in 15 areas, with a deadline of Jan. 1, 2005.

What is known as the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations, begun in February 2002, had been bogged down on several points prior to the Cancun conference, where profound differences came to the fore, largely along North-South lines, pitting developing against industrialised countries.

Pérez del Castillo says the exploratory talks held in the wake of Cancun have drawn positive reactions from developing countries, which “want to return to the process,” he told IPS.

The delegations consulted are “engaged and committed”, and expressed approval of the approach Pérez del Castillo has taken for promoting negotiations, which is to limit talks to four key trade areas: agriculture, industrial tariffs, cotton and what are known as the “Singapore issues”.

These issues include competition policies, protection for foreign investment, trade facilitation and transparency in government procurement, pending since the Second WTO Ministerial Conference, held in Singapore in 1996.

Now all that is needed is to get the United States and European Union excited about joining the process, commented Pérez del Castillo.

He will meet Monday in Washington with the U.S. trade representative Robert Zoellick, and will then set a meeting with Pascal Lamy, the EU trade commissioner.

The two trade powers are hesitant about a renewal of the negotiating process, and avoid taking the initiative, said the General Council chairman.

However, among the rest of the 146 WTO members there are signs emerging of a commitment to the multilateral trade approach, and of a willingness to get the process back on track before December.

In a brief resolution issued by the Cancun conference, Pérez del Castillo and WTO director-general Supachai Panitchpakdi were given the mandate of reviving the negotiating process and attaining concrete results prior to Dec. 15.

The G22 meeting Thursday included an assessment of Pérez del Castillo’s efforts. The group continues to be active and stands behind the opinion that the Cancun failure is not its responsibility, the trade source told IPS.

The group of developing countries coalesced in the weeks leading up to the Cancun ministerial conference, originally with 20 members, as a counterweight to the EU and United States’ protectionist farm trade policies.

A month prior to Cancun, the two trade powers had presented an initiative in which they said they would cede some of those measures and open their markets to agricultural products from developing countries.

But the developing world’s leaders argued that the initiative did not go far enough, and set to creating their own bloc for negotiating farm trade issues.

The current members of the G22 are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Egypt, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, South Africa, Thailand and Venezuela.

More than 51 percent of the world’s population and 63 percent of farmers live in the G22 countries, which produce more than a fifth of global agricultural output and more than a quarter of farm exports.