HONG KONG – Despite last weekend’s agreement to move the World Trade Organization development round into its final phase next year, the promised gains for developing countries continue to be elusive.
Developing and least-developed countries, who make up most of the 150 WTO members, decided Dec. 18 not to block the agreement, hoping that more benefits emerge from Geneva talks in 2006.
But they told reporters they are disappointed and frustrated by the slow pace of progress.
Brazilian foreign minister Celso Amorim, a leader of the G-20 coalition of advanced developing nations that includes India and China, said the results of the Hong Kong meeting for poor countries was at best modest.
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Advocacy groups on the sidelines of the conference were not as positive.
“This is very disappointing,” said Oxfam Canada activist Mark Fried Dec. 18. “From a development point of view, we consider this a real setback. There were some modest gains in agriculture – some promises of access for least developed for example and promises to deal with sensitive and special products- but they do not go very far and they are more than offset by pressure on poor countries to open their markets to industrial goods and trade in services. In reality, they will be swamped by richer countries in these fields.”
At a news conference as the conference was ending, Canadian trade minister Jim Peterson insisted that development remained a core objective of the WTO negotiation.
“There is no way this round will succeed without including developing countries,” he said. “We have seen in this deal aid-for-trade, special products, special safeguards and we’re going to have to deal with customs erosion, the loss of revenue that will come to some countries (as tariffs decrease).
“I think the true gains they are going to gain through development will come in the core areas of NAMA (non-agricultural market access), services and agriculture, levelling the playing field so they can engage in world international commerce.”
The minister said reductions in rich-country agricultural subsidies are a key part of that.
