Hong Kong, 13/12/2005 (Agence Europe) - WTO Director General Pascal Lamy and Hong Kong Trade Minister John Tsang, opened the 6th WTO Summit on Tuesday, attended from Tuesday to Sunday by the trade ministers of the 149 World Trade Organisation (WTO) Member States, hoping to make new breakthroughs to conclude the Doha Round by the end of next year, hopefully before. In order to achieve this, the participants will have to demonstrate courage, clarity and convergence, said Lamy, speaking to the sound of the whistles of thousands of anti-globalisation protesters demonstrating in Hong Kong against WTO-style globalisation, some of whom managed to get through security into the opening meeting. We need bold negotiators, open and prepared to take risks - avoiding risks, and that includes political risks, will lead us nowhere, said Lamy. At a press conference later, Pascal Lamy set out his expectations for Hong Kong. Pointing out that the WTO partners had made progress in August 2004, part way through the Round, with the agreement of a framework agreement, but had made little progress since, Lamy said he didn't think it would be possible to conclude two-thirds of the talks as he had been hoping, but expected talks to have concluded around 55 to 60% of the subject matter by the end of the Hong Kong Summit. If this was to happen, warned Lamy, concessions would have to be made, even if they were small concessions - the WTO countries would first and foremost have to give ground on farm issues as part of the development package, but this should not be seen as a substitute for concluding an ambitious overall Doha Round on the entire package of topics on the negotiating table. The development package was discussed on Tuesday evening and was the topic of discussion in the first consultation group meeting chaired by Lamy (attended by the big players). Lamy warned that the development package must not be used as an excuse for failing to make progress on other areas of the talks, particularly farming and industrial goods. The WTO Director General pointed out that farming and industrial goods were very closely linked on the political front.
Under the development package, the European Union announced on Tuesday that it is doubling its annual contribution to the trade aid it provides to the least developed countries (LDCs). Member States have decided to increase their aid from 2010 onwards by EUR 400 mil to EUR 1 bn, on top of the EUR 1 bn a year promised by the Commission from 2010 onwards at the G8 Summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, last summer. Highlighting the utility of making such a decision at the Hong Kong Summit, EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson pointed out at a press conference that it was vital for WTO partners to reach agreement on the development package very quickly, and that in this connection, the United States, Japan and the big emerging G20 economies (South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, Egypt and India) had fully opened their markets to LDCs, following in the wake of the EU under its 'Everything But Arms' programme.
At an early press conference on Tuesday morning, major G20 negotiators warned the EU that they would not accept any attempt by the EU to divide the developing world. At a joint G20 press conference, Brazilian foreign minister Celso Amorim said a development round first required the scrapping of trade distorting rules from the global farm trade. A G20 statement adopted on Tuesday notes: 'The largest structural distortion in international trade occurs in agriculture through the combination of high tariffs, domestic support and export subsidies that protect inefficient farmers in developed countries. Removing these anti-development measures is a core objective of the Doha Round as it will help in reclaiming the development dimension of the DDA and the meaningful integration of developing countries into the global economy.' The G20's objectives are clear - 'the imperative to ensure substantial reductions in trade-distorting domestic support through both reductions and discipline, with the elimination of all forms of export subsidies by 2010 along with a detailed timetable, and draft agreement on reduction in the customs tariffs levied by rich countries on farm exports to be agreed by April 2006. Under this draft agreement, the G20 wants to make operational and effective the provisions on special and differential treatment, particularly on Special Products and the Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM).
In the same spirit, Indian trade minister Kamal Nath told reporters that that rich countries had to draw up a timetable or roadmap for the scrapping of farm subsidies that have a negative impact on global farm commodity prices. Mr Nath mainly denounced the unacceptable paradox of a dollar-a-day survival for most of the poorest populations of the developing countries compared to one billion dollars paid out each day to farmers in the richest countries of the planet. There can be no price paid to the European Union to put an end to export subsidies and to its domestic subsidies that distort global trade, the Indian minister added regarding the European request for a parallel movement from emerging countries on services and manufactured goods (NAMA). Furthermore, on the subject of NAMA, Mr Nath was opposed to the “Swiss formula” of reducing tariffs, mainly supported by Europe and the United States in a new version proposed on Monday evening by the Union. The Indian minister believed that, if it were fixed at 10 for developed countries and developing countries, as Mr Mandelson had suggested, then the coefficient for reducing tariffs contained in the formula would be translated by a 77% reduction of Indian tariffs on manufactured goods compared to ”a mere” 24% for Union tariffs . Mr Nath also condemned the abusive practice of anti-dumping law and the use of non-tariff barriers by developed countries. “Market access is not solely a matter of customs duties”, he said.
The first day of talks was also marked by a new episode in the quarrel between the Union and the United States over the question of US Food Aid. In answer to the US Trade Representative, Rob Portman, who, using the press, had accused the Union a little earlier on for being “obsessed” by food aid granted to developing countries by Washington in a humanitarian aid context, Mr Mandelson found it “shocking that a UN agency (Ed.: the UNDP - United Nations Development Programme) should finance advertising to support American food aid”, which is a disguised subsidy creating great distortion of international trade. The European Agriculture Commissioner, Mariann Fischer Boel, said US food aid is above all else a subsidy to American farmers. She recalled that this system allowed American products to export 20% of their corn production and 30% of their powdered milk production. In answer to questions on this subject, Pascal Lamy recalled that the Union provides a large part of its food aid in cash, a practice that avoids trade distortion and falls in world prices. Also, food aid is certainly not an instrument for long-term development, Peter Mandelson noted. In Mr Lamy's view, the question will, in the context of agricultural talks, be one of the “keys” to an ambitious agreement to conclude the Doha Round.