[APWW-Meet] More Fears Rise Around Doha Deal

[Roberto Savio <soros@other-net.info>]

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More Fears Rise Around Doha Deal
By Aileen Kwa

GENEVA, May 19 (IPS) - As WTO negotiations pick up this week, some
developing countries are in growing doubt that a deal liberalising their
economies further could help them cope with the food crisis.

IPS spoke to an ambassador from an ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific)
country who declined to be named. His country is a net food importer and
is now struggling to deal with the high food prices on the world market.


"WTO should not prevent us from having the policy space that we want to
protect our agricultural sectors. We cannot totally rely on an import
market to feed our population. An agreement that does this (constrains
our policy space) will not fly at this time. We cannot be constrained
unduly in what we can do in agriculture."=20

Even more than the negotiations in agriculture, he was concerned about
the loss of tariff revenues through the negotiations on cutting duties
on industrial products. "The proposals (in the non-agricultural market
access negotiations) will cut our applied (actual tariff) rates, and we
will have our customs revenue cut. In the context of governments having
to find more money to buy oil and to buy food, don't cut our income at
such a sensitive time! These things cannot be politically saleable. Our
politicians will say, 'How can I sign off when I face increasing energy
and food bills?'"=20

In addition to revenue cuts, his country is also bracing against income
cuts from the loss of markets such as the EU.=20

Simulations of the Doha Round conducted by the World Bank (Anderson and
Martin in 2005) and even the EU's own sustainability impact assessment
(by Kirkpatrick et al of the University of Manchester in 2006) have
shown that ACP countries will lose out in the Doha Round because of the
erosion of preferences. In a liberalised environment, countries which
have historically been provided preferential access will lose some of
these markets.=20

According to the ACP ambassador, "income losses are particularly true
for preference-receiving countries that will suffer from preference
erosion. We are talking about existing export earnings that are going to
be eroded by this Round. We need to be given more breathing space."=20

Indonesia's ambassador to the WTO, Gusmardi Bustami, has said that his
country would fight even harder to have flexibilities or less
liberalisation in the agriculture negotiations. Indonesia has been
leading the G33, a developing country coalition of 46 countries arguing
for less or no liberalisation in certain strategic agricultural
products.=20

Bustami told IPS he was skeptical about the push from certain quarters
that more liberalisation -- so that food supplies could circulate
unhindered around the world -- would alleviate the food crisis.=20

"We have to fill the shortage of supply by increasing national
production capacity. Some people say that you increase supplies by
opening your market and reducing your tariff barriers. Maybe this is not
the solution for all countries. What we need is more production. Let
countries produce the food themselves, so that they are not very much
dependent on others."=20

The ambassador from the ACP country also talked about the different
approaches to trade between agricultural exporting developing countries
and the majority which have much less capacity to export.=20

"There are many perspectives around the world. The ultimate strength of
the multilateral trading system will depend on how it deals with the
different realities. It cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach. To
prescribe the same remedies at the same time (as in the WTO) is
something that cannot be legitimate. This is an issue I am grappling
with right now, and it will be a recurring theme. It will not go away.=20

"There is solidarity amongst developing countries but there are also
important differences. We are not all the same, we have different
resources, and our economies have developed in different ways. And if
multilateralism is to have credibility, it has to develop its rules to
recognise these differences. (END/2008)

=20

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