G-33 Ministerial Meeting - Before & After

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In This NEWS Bulletin ***************************** 1. G-33 MINISTERIAL - Developing nations oppose Lamy’s idea 2. ON THE EVE OF G-33 MINISTERIAL - Not import liberalisation, but justified protection needed for farm sector 3. India’s role key to breaking the Doha deadlock: Lamy 4. Nath sees divide-and-rule threat brewing in WTO -- G-33 MINISTERIAL Developing nations oppose Lamy’s idea http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=159012 ASHOK B SHARMA Posted online: Monday, March 26, 2007 at 0028 hours IST NEW DELHI , MARCH 25: WTO director-general, Pascal Lamy’s game of engaging few select countries to break the current deadlock in the WTO negotiations has not been viewed well by the majority of the developing countries. It has at last turned out to be counterproductive. The ministerial conference of 40 odd group of developing and least developed countries which concluded last week in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta clearly said in a communiqué : “The ministers noted that, while small groups, plurilateral, as well as bilateral, discussions may be useful to help the multilateral process of negotiations, these must be accompanied by an open and inclusive process with the full involvement

of all WTO members. This is essential to ensure transparency and equity in the process as well as the legitimacy of the results of these negotiations”. This is a clear reference to the meeting of G-4 ( EU , US , Brazil and India ) in London and several other “fireside” chats and green room discussions in Geneva . The G-33 has now substantially made clear that such engagements create an atmosphere of distrust, because of the inherent nature of lack of transparency and equity in the process. The developing and the least developed countries (LDCs) and the small and vulnerable economies (SVEs), which have a large section of small and marginal farmers cannot afford to have a bad deal at the behest of a select few. Lamy should, therefore, know that if he really means to successfully wrap up the Doha development round he needs to facilitate negotiations ensuring greater transparency and wider participation. Another

significant proposal which the G-33 was to throw the ball in the court of the developed countries and showing their own willingness for the forward movement in the negotiations. “Developing countries stand ready to engage in negotiations based on meaningful proposals taking fully and effectively into account the principle of overall proportionality in tariff reduction commitment and special and differential treatment in all aspects of negotiations,” the G-33 minsterial communiqué said. The G-33, which usually takes a defensive position in agriculture by way of proposing designation of Special Products (SPs) for lower tariff cuts and special safeguard mechanism (SSM), has this time become equally aggressive in demanng market access in the developed world. It has called for drastic reduction in farm subsidies and high tariff barriers in the developed countries. It was a good strategy on part of G-33 to invite

Lamy , EU Trade Commission Peter Madelson and US trade delegates to the meeting and show the strength of unity among the developing world. However, several civil society and farmers’ organizations based in Indonesia like KRKP, SBIB, JARABKOR and those based outside Indonesia like Rice Watch and Action Network, ActionAid, Korean Advanced Farmers’ Federation, Bharat Krishak Samaj (India) came under the banner of G-33 CSOs and had cautioned the G-33 ministers not to bow to the pressures of EU, US and Lamy. “A group of farmers under the banner of La Via Campesina held a protest march on the occasion of Lamy’s visit,” said Afsar Jafri of the Focus on Global South. The G-33 also “reviewed and approved a revision of the list of indicators for selection of SPs in a manner so as to ensure transparency, while enabling all developing countries to appropriately self-designate an appropriate number of products based on the mandated

criteria.” The G-33 had earlier proposed that the 20% of the tariff lines in developing countries should be covered under SPs. The group of NGOs calling themselves as G-33 CSOs had suggested that the developing countries should have the right to designate more than 20% of the tariff lines as SPs, while some other NGOs had called for covering every agricultural products under SPs. G-33 emphasised “that SSM should be available to all agricultural products and that the import price and import volume triggers applied separately should alone determine which product needs invocation of the SSM at any given time.” They reiterated that to uphold the integrity of special and differential treatment the terms and conditions of the mechanism should be more favourable than the existing provisions of Article 5 of the Agreement on Agriculture. --------------------------- ON THE EVE OF G-33

MINISTERIAL Not import liberalisation, but justified protection needed for farm sector http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=158263 ASHOK B SHARMA Posted online : Monday, March 19, 2007 at 0000 hours IST NEW DELHI, MAR 18: Reduction in tariff protection in South Asian agriculture has been the primary cause of import surge, leading to fall in employment in farm activities, lowering of returns to farmers and increased levels of poverty in rural areas. This is observation made by the South Asian Yearbook of Trade and Development recently released by the Delhi-based Centre for Trade & Development (Centad) and Wiley India Pvt Ltd. The Yearbook further said

that the absence of income and insurance safety nets compounded the problems leading to desperate and irreversible actions by afflicted farmers—an obvious reference to the series of farmers’ suicides. The observations in the Yearbook is a caution to the Indian government which is deliberately engaged in the process of import liberalisation. The commerce minister, Kamal Nath at the sidelines of the recent World Economic Summit at Davos made an unilateral offer on behalf of the developing countries to be flexible on the issues of designation of special products and application of Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM). The agriculture minister, Sharad Pawar has openly favoured a liberalized export-import regime. Last week in the Parliament he announced that private trade, corporate houses and multinational corporation would be allowed to import dutyfree wheat. Government would also import 3 million tonne wheat

despite a good production of over 80 million tonne wheat in the country, according to several experts. However, the government has made a conservative estimate of 72 million tonne wheat production, despite the increase in area under wheat crop by over 28 million hectare. Government's justification for allowing dutyfree wheat import is to augment its supply and arrest the rising trend in prices. But such action did not result in a solution and the government's Economic Survey 2006 admitted that wheat imports failed to hold the price line. Rather the global prices of wheat appreciated when India became a bulk import. Wheat production in previous year was sufficient to meet the domestic needs and so also is the case in the present year. The prime cause for price rise is deliberate hoarding of stocks and market manipulation, which the government is reluctant to control. Unwarranted

import liberalization is no solution, rather it may be counterproductive. The Yearbook suggests adequate protection of food security and livelihoods of small and resource poor farmers through multilateral disciplines of SPs and SSM. Discussions on SPs and SSM is central for the Third World. G-33, group of about 40 developing and least developed countries are meeting in Jakarta in Indonesia to discuss the strategy. G-33 has proposed that 20% of the tariff lines should be protected under SPs, while several civil society organizations have said that all farm produces should be designated as SPs. In India, the agriculture ministry has identified very few products—about 80 tariff lines—as SPs. The Yearbook, however pleads for developing separate objective criteria for for designating SPs in South Asia which should be broad enough to cover large range of products. “An earlier case study on India has shown that 57% of tariff lines need greater

flexibility as SPs. With regard to the SSM, price-triggers are found to be more appropriate than volume triggers.” Thus, let us act before it is too late. India’s role key to breaking the Doha deadlock: Lamy http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=157539 ECONOMY BUREAU Posted online: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 at 0000 hours IST NEW DELHI, MAR 12 : WTO director-general Pascal Lamy on Monday criticised the slow progress of the Doha Round of talks and called for speeding up the process to achieve a breakthrough by June. India can help in breaking the ice, Lamy said. Lamy, who was here to participate in a seminar on the Doha Round said, “Time is not on our side and many members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) are becoming impatient.

The multilateral process of negotiations must therefore begin at full speed and chairpersons of various negotiation groups must come in centrestage.” “We need to speed up the process to grasp the opportunity, which closes in June, with the expiry of the US Trade Promotion Authority,” Lamy added. Lamy, however, said, at present, political leaders were focussing to get a breakthrough since they realised the cost of failure would be “absolutely huge”. Meanwhile, around 200 protestors from farmers’ groups, including Bharat Krishak Samaj (BKS), Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) and NGOs Housing Rights Association, Peoples Campaign for Justice and Sovereignty, Youth for Justice and Slum Dwellers Association, gathered outside the venue and demanded to be heard. “We do not want a bad deal at any cost,” they said. Vandana Shiva of Navdanya questioned why no farmers’ leader was invited at the seminar. “I was informed that some progress has been

made in testing hypothesis, approaches and formulae last week in bilateral contacts between the US, EU, Brazil and India” Lamy said during his speech. On agriculture, Lamy said WTO members have agreed that this Round has to deliver effective cuts in trade-distorting farm subsidies in developed countries. ------------ --------- --------- ----- Nath sees divide-and-rule threat brewing in WTO http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=157538 ECONOMY BUREAU Posted online: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 at 0000 hours IST NEW DELHI, MAR 12 : Claiming that there are threats to divide the developing world in the Doha Round by creating another category of advanced developing nations, commerce and industry minister Kamal Nath on Monday warned such attempts “would lead to the collapse of the

talks”. At a seminar on the Doha Round here, Nath said there were threats to dilute the grant of special treatment to developing countries and added that this was “totally unacceptable to India and other developing nations”. He said, “The developed countries have to show the necessary will to remove the distortions in the international agriculture market so that the negotiations go forward.” The minister said it was important for India that the talks were brought to a successful conclusion. He said India would show flexibility to achieve such an outcome “but the onus for movement is clearly with the large developed countries”. He categorically stated that there could be no “one-size-fits- all” approach in the negotiations as different countries were in different stages of development. Nath said the Doha Round was not just about providing market access to all countries, irrespective of their existing share of global trade. “It is in

the interest of developed countries to ensure healthy economies in countries of Asia and Africa by ensuring a level playing field. Otherwise, inequities of the existing system will hit trade flows from developed countries as people in developing nations will not have the purchasing power to buy goods and services from the developed world”, he stressed. External affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee said, “The biggest handicap is that we have not been able to develop benchmarks to facilitate a developmental audit of the progress of negotiations. We need to ensure that the development dimension stays in clear focus.” Mukherjee said since the bulk of the rural poor in countries like India were vulnerable to external developments, proposals designed to impose a disproportionately higher burden on developing countries would disrupt their social and economic

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