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By Angelo S. Samonte, Reporter
President Gloria Arroyo renewed her call for
pushing forward the World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha Round of
talks during her meeting with a US official at the ongoing World
Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Susan Schwab, the US Permanent Trade
Representative to the WTO, had asked President Arroyo for the
Philippines’ commitment “to have an ambitious outcome of the
Doha talks,” said Trade Secretary Peter Favila, who was at the
meeting Friday.
“The President says she is not changing her
position,” Favila added. “In fact, she has called upon her
colleagues in the Asean [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] to
get this [Doha Round] moving forward.”
The so-called Doha Development Round, which was
launched in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar in November 2001, aimed to
demonstrate that economic cooperation, not terrorism, was the way to
rebuild trust between the world’s rich and poor.
The Philippines belongs to G-33, a grouping of
developing countries that seeks to advance the interest of poor
countries in WTO.
During the Philippines’ chairmanship of the
12th Asean Summit in Cebu in 2006, Asean leaders approved Mrs.
Arroyo’s proposal for an independent statement that reinforces the
region’s commitment to the Doha Round of talks.
The leaders called for a fair and liberal global
trade and offered tangible means to reduce poverty globally,
particularly in the Asean region.
But negotiations in 2006 bogged down when
industrialized countries refused to cut down their subsidies,
particularly to their farming sectors.
The developing countries have been asking the
developed ones to remove their agricultural subsidies to foster fair
competition. They said such supports distort trade and artificially
lower prices of their products.
Mrs. Arroyo is scheduled to meet with WTO
Director General Pascal Lamy to push conclusion of an agreement that
will reduce the amount of subsidies being extended by rich countries
and provide developing countries wider access to the global market.
Hogging the 2006 negotiations was “the push
for the US and the EU [European Union] to remove the
market-distorting farm subsidies that have made it difficult for
poor countries to compete in the global agricultural markets.”
These talks also tackled “the question of market accessibility
with much of the European and American markets protected by high
tariffs.”
During the negotiations, the European Union
claimed “that the US is not prepared to reform its own
agricultural sector while the US is urging the EU to make major
concessions of its own.”
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