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By Ben Arnold O. de Vera, Researcher
The Fair Trade Alliance (FTA) fears the new
drafts to be presented at the upcoming World Trade Organization (WTO)
mini-ministerial meeting would further increase the trade imbalances
between developed and developing nations.
Rene Ofreneo, FTA executive director, said in a
statement that the drafts to be presented at the mini-ministerial
meeting in Geneva at the end of this week, which was convened by WTO
Director General Pascal Lamy to address the deadlock in the Doha
Development Round negotiations, benefit only the developed
countries.
The Doha talks commenced in 2001 to introduce
trade reforms that would make developing countries more competitive
in global commerce. But the talks resulted in richer nations
receiving more perks than the poorer nations, such as greater tariff
cuts among developing nations than their more developed
counterparts.
Ofreneo cited the draft on the new Agreement on
Agriculture, which will maintain the huge agricultural subsidies in
the United States, European Union member-states and Australia at the
same time it will further slash tariff on agricultural imports in
developing countries.
FTA also claimed the draft remains vague on
measures wherein developing countries can designate special products
that are exempted from tariff formulas, and on limits to a small
percentage the import volumes with which developing countries can
utilize special safeguard mechanisms.
It said the draft on trade, called
Non-Agricultural Market Access, still does not address the
insistence for credits of developing countries that have undergone
liberalization. The draft also has a provision calling for
non-exemption of all sectors in tariff cuts that, according to FTA,
would stall efforts of developing countries to safeguard their key
industries.
For the services sector, the General Agreement
on Trade in Services draft seeks deeper liberalization of the
financial industry, and less public control over utilities.
FTA stated it hopes the Philippine delegation to
the mini-ministerial would remain firm in its cooperation with the
developing nations bloc’s struggle for a fair Doha Development
Round.
“We want a dialogue with [the Philippine
delegation to the mini-ministerial] before they leave or soon after
their arrival from the meeting,” said Jun Umali, president of the
National Union of Bank Employees, adding that, “The [FTA] requests
consultation on whatever rules [the trade officials] have to
promulgate [as a result of the talks].”
Umali also stressed, “We will be against
backdoor liberalization; the government should be transparent [in
its dealings in Geneva].”
Regarding the services sector, Umali said FTA
would rather that the government does not open public services such
as education, health and utilities to countries outside the
Philippines.
Meanwhile, Jessica Reyes-Cantos, Rice Watch and
Action Network lead convenor, called on Agriculture Secretary Arthur
Yap and the other trade negotiators to push for the elimination of
trade-distorting mechanisms in agriculture, as the weakly supported
local farm sector is in an imbalanced competition with the heavily
subsidized agricultural produce of developed nations.
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