TRADE: Time for the Collective ‘Strip-Tease’

By Sanjay Suri Reprint | | Print |

Sanjay Suri

LONDON, Mar 9 2006 (IPS) - Developed and developing countries alike will lay bare their final negotiating positions at a crucial round of trade talks this weekend.

Both developed and developing countries will lay bare their final negotiating positions at a crucial round of trade talks this weekend.

Representatives from India, Brazil, the European Union, the United States, Japan and Australia will meet in London Mar. 11 and 12 in an attempt to push talks on a global trade agreement from where they got stalled in Hong Kong in December.

In Hong Kong and later at talks at Davos, the developed and the developing countries have remained deadlocked in diverging positions. The developing world largely wants concessions from the rich countries by way of access for their agricultural goods and a time-barred commitment to ending production and export subsidies. The developed want the developing world to open up their markets for manufactured goods ad services.

The London meeting will be some indication who is prepared to give way, and how far.

”The EU and the U.S. have offered very little,” Alex Wijeratne from ActionAid told IPS. ”And now this is where we are going to see what they are really, really offering. ”They’re going to show their cards now, and the developing world will show their cards. It’s called a collective strip-tease.”

”We’re saying the developing countries, the poorest countries, should be at the table,” Wijeratne said. ”They’re not at the table, they’re not at this meeting, and we’re very angry about that.”

But Brazil and India could speak effectively for the developing countries, says Mohan Kaul, director-general of the Commonwealth Business Council. ”Brazil and India are looking at all developing countries,” he told IPS.

The trade talks are not formally a part of the negotiation process of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). But they mark a significant negotiating point along the way to more formal negotiations due in April and again in July.

”What these talks are trying to do is to link the timetable for the reduction of subsidies in agriculture products along with services timetable,” Kaul said. ”We know now what is on the table. On the table now is that we want agriculture market access and subsidies to be reduced in developed countries, we want opening of markets and services in developing countries, we need reduction of tariffs on goods in both developing and developed countries.”

The talks this weekend are aimed at developing an understanding rather than arriving at decisions, Kaul said. ”This initiative is to a certain extent to develop an understanding of each other’s position, understanding the political compulsion of each other and seeing if we can get a timetable which will link the services liberalisation with the agriculture subsidies cut. That’s really the crux of this.”

The small group is working towards a WTO agreement, Kaul said. ”How good that agreement will be I don’t know, but . . . India and Brazil along with Europe and Americans are trying to have an agreement by the end of this year.”

How good that agreement will be is the heart of the issue, says Wijeratne. ”We are saying we don’t want a deal if it’s a bad deal,” he told IPS. ”We’re saying that the deal on the table at the moment isn’t good enough, it really isn’t going to help fight poverty and could actually exacerbate poverty.”

Any agreement at this stage would be vital, he said. ”These are really crucial talks, we are really into the end game of the trade talks. This is when it all happens, facts and figures really begin to be put on the table.”

The talks will be about the political push behind the figures, he said. ”It’s about injecting political momentum into the talks. They have floundered, they are deadlocked. This is about breaking the deadlock and trying to agree facts and figures on the trade deal so that it can be wrapped up by the end of this year.”

The developed countries are the ones who need to give way, he said. ”We’re looking for much bigger cuts in subsidies which lead to dumping in the developing world, crops being dumped overseas, we want to see the EU and the U.S. take off their pressure,” he said. ”They want to open up and slash tariffs in the developing world very radically. We’re saying that’s going to lead to tens of thousands of job losses. We want them to pull off that pressure right now.”

In that, he said, Brazil and India have a crucial role to play. ”India is a key developing country, it is a leader with Brazil of the developing countries, it takes this leadership role and rightly so, but what we’re saying is that we need India and Brazil to stay very, very firm and not to give in to this pressure from the EU and the U.S.”