NGOs CALL RICH COUNTRIES TO STOP IMPOSING EXTREME DEMANDS AT THE WTO SIXTH MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE
Published on Thu, 2005-12-22 15:40
Several NGOs attending the Hong Kong Ministerial are taking the initiative of a joint NGO statement expressing our concerns about the negotiations in which the developed countries are intent on piling pressure on developing countries to accept extreme liberalization policies. The current proposals of developed countries particularly on NAMA, Services and Agriculture, do not have development content and are in fact anti-developmental. Thus we are seeking the endorsement of a broad range of NGOs to strongly put forward demands on the rich-country governments to back off from pressurizing developing countries to accept a very bad deal. To make an impact on the negotiations, we hope to highlight these concerns to the media on Friday evening (16 Dec). We hope that your organization will be able to sign -on to the statement. Could you please inform us by the afternoon of 16 Dec (3 pm) by replying to this email and stating the name of your organization, if you wish to endorse. Please do circulate this statement to other groups that may be interested to sign on to this statement. Thank you Martin Khor and Sangeeta NGOs CALL RICH COUNTRIES TO STOP IMPOSING EXTREME DEMANDS AT THE WTO SIXTH MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE 16th December 2005 We the undersigned civil society organizations are concerned that the positions taken by major developed countries at the Hong Kong Ministerial conference are undermining development interests. We are outraged by how the developed countries, particularly the United States and the European Union, are trying to use the Ministerial to aggressively push forward their agenda to open the markets in developing countries for the interests of their corporations. At the same time the major developed countries are not making meaningful concessions to stop the dumping of their agricultural products in developing countries nor are they offering to increase imports of agricultural products from developing countries. This would be a very bad deal for development and no deal is better than a bad deal. The demands and concerns of developing countries in this round have repeatedly been sidelined. In fact it appears that pressures are being put on some developing countries during the Ministerial not to resist the market-opening proposals of the developed countries. The WTO rules have perpetuated an unfair trading system which favour rich countries and their corporations, while laying developing countries open to ever more pressures to liberalise when their farmers and firms are not in a position to compete in the global economy. This is because the rules are unfair, and because the local firms are too weak to face the onslaught of giant foreign firms. The results of the unfair trading system include the loss of livelihoods and incomes of small farmers, loss of jobs due to de-industrialisation in many countries, continued obstacles to access to markets in rich countries and continuous decline in commodity prices and the poverty that is linked to that. Particularly affected are women in farming and working communities in developing countries. The Hong Kong Ministerial meeting, coming at a strategically important moment in the Doha negotiations, might have had the potential to correct some of the imbalances and turn the corner towards development. But it looks as if the potential for doing something positive has faded or disappeared.
To make matters worse, attempts are also being made by the major developed countries to offset the embarrassment of not achieving progress in modalities, by putting on a “spin” that the developing countries, or at least the LDCs, are getting some benefits in advance through a “development package.” This package looks unlikely to contain any real benefits of significance to developing countries, most of them containing promises of aid which is in the form of loans. This is a “face saving” exercise to disguise the fact that the Doha negotiations have not lived up to their “development” name but instead have taken an anti-development turn. We therefore demand that the major developed countries: Ø Stop pressuring the developing countries to further liberalise their agriculture, industrial goods and services sectors and withdraw their demands to do the same; Ø Allow developing countries to take necessary measures to protect their domestic firms and farms so as to enable the developing countries to have their own policy space to meet their sustainable development objectives. Ø Substantially increase their offers in agriculture by committing to cut total trade-distorting domestic subsidies to levels below the current or planned applied levels, and agree to serious disciplines on the Green Box subsidies so that overall domestic support is really decreased; agree to end all export subsidies by 1 January 2010 or earlier; immediately end cotton export subsidies and eliminate domestic support for cotton by 2006. Ø Permanently withdraw proposals for numerical targets and benchmarking in services and withdraw Annex C on services, especially its clause on mandatory participation in plurilateral negotiations, and its clauses on modal and sectoral negotiations and the framework on government procurement. Ø Allow developing countries the flexibility to choose whether and to what extent to liberaliser their industrial sectors. Ø Agree to genuine development measures, including resolving the Special and Differential proposals and the implementation proposals of developing countries as soon as possible and at least before the settlement of the market access issues; and the inclusion of genuine and effective SDT provisions in the negotiations in agriculture, NAMA and services. Ø Agree to an assessment of the impact of their proposals on employment, gender, environment and natural resources, poverty and equity. If there is failure in Hong Kong, this will be because developed countries have not shown willingness to deliver on the above demands and it will have to be these countries that have to take responsibility for the failure of the WTO once again to make the necessary changes to the unequal world trading regime. In any case, the developing countries should not be asked once again to sacrifice their development by accepting the inadequate offers and extreme demands of developed countries. We are of the view that no deal in Hong Kong is better then a bad deal. Endorsed By: 1) Third World Network (TWN) For interviews and further comment: Sangeeta Shashikant: +852 96465229 Tags: |