The President of the Philippines, this year's host of the annual Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit, said that she intends to include World Trade Organisation (WTO) issues in the summit agenda, specifically the resumption of the stalled WTO talks, and which started in Qatar in November 2001. The ten member countries of the ASEAN, including Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, will gather together in Cebu, Philippines in December.

 

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo said she has invited WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy to attend the 12th ASEAN leaders' summit after he had expressed interest to join them.

Lamy is invited to be one of the key speakers at the ASEAN Business and Investment Summit on December 7-10, 2006, also in Cebu City. After Arroyo’s keynote address during the summit, Lamy is expected to discuss the implications of WTO negotiations and measures on how to address the challenges of global and regional integration.

In interview cited in  the Inquirer, a local daily, Arroyo said, “We are not talking about a free trade area in the world; we are talking about an orderly liberalised trade with rules, with very clear rules of the game and sanctions for those who violate the rules. This makes for orderly trade, and orderly trade is very good for each of the individual countries in this modern world in the 21st century.”

Other world trade blocs, including the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and G20, in which some ASEAN members belong, are also urging the revival of the WTO talks. In separate statements made during the APEC and G20 meetings held in November and September, respectively, members of the trade blocs are calling for the prompt resumption of the global trade talks.

Aimed at increasing global free trade, particularly in agricultural products, the WTO talks have been suspended since July after countries failed to agree over how to cut the big agricultural subsidies by Western countries.

The stalled WTO trade negotiations, more popularly known as the Doha Development Round, included agenda items that developed countries claim will benefit developing countries. Activists say otherwise.

In an article from the Inter Press News Agency, Carin Smaller, Geneva-office director for the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), said that “the current WTO system has been devastating for small-scale farmers all over developing countries.”

Furthermore, Walden Bello, executive director of Focus on the Global South and sociology professor at the University of the Philippines, stressed that the developing countries need to understand that WTO “really does not work for them. The Doha Development Round was really a misnomer, having nothing to do with development.”

Sources:
“Asean summit dress code: Beach elegant” from the 12th Asean Summit, posted on November 24, 2006, <http://www.12thaseansummit.org.ph/innertemplate3.asp?category=news&newsid=164>.
“Asean Summit to tackle WTO talks, says Arroyo” from the Inquirer, posted on November 2, 2006, <http://globalnation.inq7.net/news/news/view_article.php?article_id=30220>.
“G20 urges restart of trade talks” from BBC News, posted on September 10, 2006, <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5331690.stm>.
“Lamy: APEC ministers call for rapid restart of the negotiating engines” from the World Trade Organization, posted on November 15, 2006, <http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/sppl_e/sppl48_e.htm>.
“Leaders 'must revive trade talks'” from BBC News, posted on November 14, 2006, <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6145934.stm>.
“Members pledge to revive WTO talks” from excite.uk, posted on November 18, 2006, <http://news.excite.co.uk/international/asia-pacific/21139>.
“Trade: Requiem for the WTO” from Inter Press Service News Agency, posted on August 2, 2006, <http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=34215>.

FYI: ASEAN Countries in World Trade Blocs

1) Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)
- a loose grouping of the countries bordering the Pacific Ocean who have pledged to
facilitate free trade by 2010 for developed countries and 2015 for developing countries
- ASEAN members: Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam

2) The Cairns group of agricultural exporting nations
- formed in 1986 to lobby at the last round of world trade talks in order to free up trade in agricultural products and to ensure that their products are not excluded from markets in Europe and Asia
- ASEAN members: Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand

3) G20
- composed of the developing country members of the Cairns group, the G20 insists that rich countries make concessions on agriculture before there will be any final agreement on services or reductions in tariffs on manufactured goods
- ASEAN members: Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand

Source:
A Guide to World Trade Blocs, <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4510792.stm>.