With no agreement reached after a recent WTO mini-ministerial in London, trade ministers and development experts doubt that the April 30 deadline set by the World Trade Organisation to complete the Doha Development Round would be met.

 

Representatives from the Group of 6  Australia, Brasil, EU, India, Japan, and the US  were unable to come to an agreement on the tariffs of agricultural products and industrial goods during the two-day meeting set to move the stalled Doha round before the April 30 deadline set at the Hong Kong ministerial last December.

The on-going WTO negotiation was called the development round with the aim of giving poor countries more economic opportunities through trade deals. Launched in Doha, Qatar in 2001, it was supposed to be completed by December 2005, but stalled because of several contentious issues.

No deal is better than a bad deal

For the Third World Networks Martin Khor, no deal was reached in London because developed countries did not make any meaningful offer in agriculture, yet demanded developing countries to have very steep cuts in industrial tariffs and open up their markets to industrial goods and services.

We are disappointed by the absolute lack of give from the EU and the US, laments Alex Wijeratna of ActionAid, a UK development organisation. We want the EU and the US to show much greater commitment to the concept of development, but they are simply not doing it. This is a big disappointment, though not a big surprise.

What is on the table is essentially a bad deal for developing countries that will mean a long-term loss of policy options for them, adds Peter Hardstaff of the NGO World Development Movement. Our assessment has always been that no deal is better than a bad deal.

Making a stand

Brazilian Minister Celso Amorim and Indian Commerce Minister Kamal Nath seemed to agree. The ministers reportedly complained after the meeting about the unfairness of developed countries, and stood firm with regard to their own demands.

We might as well wind up the talks and go home if the concerns of developing countries in the area of market access are not met, Nath said and describes the prospects of a resolution by April 30 as dim, with the way the negotiations were going.

On the other hand, the fact that India and Brasil stood their ground was a good sign.  Wijeratna pointed out that the London meeting showed a sense of mature, equal negotiating; it does not feel like there is any junior partner in these discussions and that (India and Brasil) seemed to be working extremely well as a unit (and) we would like to see (them) do more and more for development.

Winners and losers

Some development experts see the lack of a breakthrough in the talks as not a bad thing in itself. A study by Sandra Polaski, former US Secretary of State and author of Winners and Losers: Impact of the Doha Round on Developing Countries, shows that the current round of WTO trade meetings will not generate development benefits for poor nations as promised.

There are both net winners and net losers under different scenarios, and the poorest countries are among the net losers under all likely Doha scenarios, the study said. One of the reasons developing countries are not likely to benefit is that developing countries will continue to demand that any agreement should accommodate their interests.

Polaski said that trade is not the solution to development or poverty alleviation. She proposed a number of changes for the Doha development round to live up to its name, including additional measures for developing countries, very long phase-in periods, and a careful sequencing of sectoral liberalisation measures to allow for the effect of new trade rules on their less diversified economies.

Double standards

Meanwhile, WTO members seeking flexibility in telecommunications, financial, express delivery, energy, and other sectors have already submitted their collective requests to trading partners to liberalise services. These plurilateral requests were made in the hope of coming up with an ambitious result in the services trade of the Doha round.

Services negotiation has been made a priority in trade liberalisation talks by the EU and the US. I think it is very clear that we are not going to have a successful outcome for the Doha Round, unless agriculture services and non-agriculture market access are part of that equation, said deputy US Trade Representative Susan Schwab.

A typical collective request, according to Khor, makes demands on 20 to 25 WTO members. Most demandeurs are led by developed countries and call on the requested members to allow maximum freedom to foreign firms and operators to engage in trade and investment, and to have national treatment.

No date has yet been fixed for the next round of G6 meetings although one is expected to take place sometime in April before the deadline.

Sources:

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