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| Kathmandu, Wednesday January 08, 2003 Paush 24, 2059. |
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Official hints at early
bilateral negotiations
Post Report
KATHMANDU, Jan 7 The third round of bilateral
negotiations with Nepal’s trading partners for her accession to the World Trade
Organisation (WTO) has been targeted for mid-March, said an official affiliated with a
WTO-related project financed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
"We have targeted to go for the third round
of bilateral negotiations with our trading partners by mid-March," said Posh Raj
Pandey, Programme Manager of Nepal Accession to WTO.
He also said that the basic preparations related
to the accession process are almost complete and a final round of informal communication
with interested negotiating countries could pave way for the third bilateral negotiations.
The second round of bilateral negotiations and
the second Working Party meeting for the country’s accession to the WTO had been held
last September in Geneva where negotiating countries had objected to Nepal’s offer
for high binding tariff.
Pandey, talking to The Kathmandu Post today,
said that the internal homework was done after the second round of negotiations and that
the work is almost complete. "We have recently carried out a series of meetings with
our stakeholders to fix the binding tariff regime," he said.
Pandey’s assertion over the possibility of
convening the third round of negotiations, however, is subjected to government’s
consent and approval from the Cabinet. "We hope to prepare fully and submit our
proposal to the government. If promptly cleared by the Cabinet, we can hold the
negotiations within mid-March," he said.
However, a ministry official declined to comment
on Nepal’s preparedness to enter into the third round of negotiations in March.
However, he said that the first phase of interaction to set the tariff regime has been
completed. "We will now go into the second round of communicating to our trading
partners."
The communication that the ministry plans to do
is in order to understand the views of the WTO members over Nepal’s accession to the
WTO. The communication would be on the tariff binding and the opening up of the various
sectors for global trade and investment.
The countries during the second round of
negotiations and the second Working Party meet had questioned the difference in the
binding tariff proposal and the actual tariff regime.
Officials said that ‘Nepal would not
compromise on sectors that are closely inter-twined with the livelihoods of the rural
masses’. According to Pandey, while Nepal would act liberally in most sectors, it
would press for a more stringent binding level in the case of agriculture.
"Against the request of WTO trading partner
countries’ to bind our tariff at the applied rates, even in the case of agriculture,
we will not comprise on our stand," said Pandey.
If the negotiating partners now do not raise
further objection to Nepal’s new proposal, then Nepal’s berth in the WTO would
be reserved after duly completing the formalities in the third Working Party meet.
Nepal, during the earlier rounds of bilateral
negotiations, had discussed a wide range of issues with its trading partners, including
binding tariff, market access and opening of service sector, among others.
Nepal then had negotiated with the European
Union, Japan, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Canada, India, Sri Lanka and the United
States proposing binding tariff of five to six times more of the applied rates. Nepal had
proposed the binding tariff on the higher side to protect the interests of the domestic
industries.
Developed countries at the Doha Conference had
vowed to help in the accession of the least developed countries (LDCs) to the WTO
promising not to ask for WTO-plus commitments from the new members. That had raised hopes
among all the LDCs for obtaining WTO membership on a fast track basis, and more
importantly, at fewer commitments.
So far, not a single LDC has acceded to the WTO
since its establishment in 1995. Nepali government officials had claimed in 1998 that the
accession process would be completed by mid-2000, which was later extended to July 2001,
and then deferred yet again. Officials now hope Nepal to join the WTO before the next
ministerial meet.
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