APEC: NGOs Knock U.S. Hardline Stance on Farm Trade

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

OSAKA, Japan, Nov 15 1995 (IPS) - More than 100 NGOs and trade unions from 14 APEC member nations Wednesday knocked the hardline stance taken by the United States, Australia, Canada and New Zealand on the issue of farm trade liberalisation in the Asia-Pacific forum.

Dr Waldon Bello, co-director of Global South, a non- governmental organisation (NGO) based in Thailand, warned that the livelihoods of thousands of farmers would be threatened in some member countries if they were forced to liberalise their agricultural markets at too quick a pace.

“We are very concerned by what we see as a move by the richest and most powerful country in the world, the United States, trying to use APEC for its own means,” Bello told reporters.

He therefore urged Japan, China, South Korea and Taiwan — the countries that have publicly expressed reservations about too hastily liberalising agricultural trade — not to be pinned down to setting target dates for the breaking down of protective barriers when APEC leaders start their annual summit on Sunday.

“We want each member country to fight against the unrestricted liberalisation and deregulation proposed by the United states and other Western members of APEC,” he said, adding, “We support the right of any country to determine its own economic path.”

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) grouping, formed in 1989, is made up of 18 countries — and includes the fastest growing economies in the world. It represents 40 per cent of the world’s population, 53 per cent of the global Gross National Product (GNP) and 41 per cent of world trade.

The 18 are: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and the United States.

Senior officials have for the past week been holding preparatory talks to try to hammer out an Action Agenda to be discussed first at a two-day ministerial meeting beginning Thursday, and then by government leaders on Sunday and Monday.

The main issue is whether or not APEC accords or rules should be applied to all industrial sectors in keeping with a decision taken at last year’s APEC summit in Bogor, Indonesia, when leaders agreed to set 2010 as a target for liberalisation in advanced countries and 2020 for the less developed.

Japan, China, South Korea and Taiwan say they basically support a “comprehensive” principle but some “flexibility” is needed in the actual enforcement of the rule.

“Flexibility will be exercised in allowing different treatment of economic sectors in the liberalisation and facilitation process…” reads the Japanese proposal to the Action Agenda document.

The NGOs and trade unions said that on Wednesday they presented their own proposals for the Action Agenda, adding that on the liberalisation issue, theirs did not differ much from what Japan is proposing.

“While we voice a similar statement as the Japanese government…it is not the government we support but farming communities in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China which are fighting hard for protection,” said Rieko Inoue, representing the Japan-based Pacific Resource Agency.

Another NGO official, Alejandro Vilamar of Mexico, said that thousands of small farmers in his country had paid a high price because the Mexican government had lowered barriers in order to secure trade agreements with the United States.

He said Mexico imported 2.5 million tonnes of corn from the United States last year under free trade agreements and that the figure is expected to increase by 25 per cent this year.

“Learn from Mexico’s disastrous experiences,” Vilamar told reporters, pointing to the nation’s mounting trade deficit — 28 billion dollars last year — and the growing number of farmers abandoning farming because they could not compete.

One reason why the Mexican agriculture sector could not compete and why Asian farmers would also go under because of lowered trade barriers, says Bello, is because the United States itself preaches one thing and practises another.

“Using the free-trade doctrine, the United States is trying to push on Asia a system that America does not comply with,” he charged, saying that Washington heavily subsidises its corn growers.

The NGO and trade union representatives said they wished they could sit in on the ministerial and government leaders’ meetings to provide an alternative viewpoint.

“Economic issues cannot be divorced from the complex realities of people’s daily lives,” reads the NGO statement, describing APEC as a community of nations that neglects the social, political or cultural consequences of its decisions.

The NGOs said they would continue to strive for alternative development programmes promoting positive economic and social change. “We will continue our grassroot level work, which is the only means of promoting sustainable development,” said Inoue.