Trading Of Ideas
Civil Society takes the lead in identifying the issues and suggesting positions for Nepal in the forthcoming Hong Kong Ministerial
By SANJAYA DHAKAL
Three months before the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference of World Trade Organization (WTO), a leading NGO engaged in campaigning, informing and researching on the implications of the global trade regime has identified issues and suggested positions on key issues for Nepal.
The South Asia Watch on Trade, Economics & Environment (SAWTEE) organised ‘A National Consultation on WTO Doha Round & South Asia: Linking Civil Society with Trade Negotiations’ this week where its president Dr. Posh Raj Pandey clearly unveiled the issues that Nepal needs to pursue and positions it needs to take in the upcoming WTO meeting.
“It is in the advantage of countries like Nepal to demand for binding the duty and quota free preferential market access being provided by developed countries. At present, such access is unilateral and the provider can withdraw it any time. Besides, since overwhelming majority of our trade is conducted not with developed but developing countries, we need to ask for similar facilities from the latter as well,” Dr. Pandey said.
Contrary to popular perception that Nepal and other LDCs should vehemently demand the developed countries to reduce/eliminate domestic support and or export subsidies (in order to make their products competitive), Dr. Pandey advised Nepal to be careful and cautious in this issue. He said that withdrawal of such support and subsidies could trigger steep rise in price of products, thereby increasing the import bill. “This is risky for a net food importing country like Nepal,” he said.
According to him, Nepal has to prioritise issues it has more stakes in. He called for raising the issue of market access, special safeguard measures, preference erosion and food aid (in that order) rather than calling for the elimination of domestic support/export subsidies. He also advised for alliance with other LDCs and other groups on case by case basis – based upon the likely advantages to Nepal.
Navin Dahal, the Executive Director of SAWTEE, highlighted the Nepalese perspective in the Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) in WTO. Dahal stated that Nepal needs to ask developed as well as developing countries to expand market access for products of export interest to preference-depending countries.
Dahal called for the need to demand effective Technical Assistance from developed and developing members to enhance institutional and human resources necessary to implement WTO agreement such as SPS (Sanitary and Phyto Sanitary) and TBT (Technical Barriers to Trade). He pointed out the need to lobby for temporary waiver on SPS and TBT requirements on non-agricultural exports from LDCs.
The meeting is a part of a multi-stakeholder process, which would help in taking inputs from various stakeholders on issues being discussed under the Doha Round of the WTO.
“During the consultations, researchers from India, Nepal and Sri Lanka presented papers on five issues: agriculture, non-agriculture market access, services, trade facilitation and development dimension. The General Council of the WTO members, when adopting the July Package 2004, took up these issues for negotiations. These issues will also be the focus of negotiations during the Sixth WTO Ministerial Conference to be held from 13-18 December 2005 in Hong Kong, China,” states the press release by the SAWTEE.
Prof. J. George, from Faculty of Economics and Development Planning, Haryana Institute of Public Administration; Pranav Kumar, Policy Analyst, Consumer Unity & Trust Society (CUTS) International, Jaipur; and Jayanthi Thennakoon, Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), Colombo presented papers on various aspects of trade and development.
Bharat Bahadur Thapa, Secretary, Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies, stressed on the need for the developing countries “to maintain their unity of purpose to extract a fair deal out of the multilateral trade negotiations.”
