The Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce & Industry (MCCI), one of the country's leading trade promotion bodies, has called for making concerted efforts for ensuring market access for the products of the least developed countries (LDCs), as was promised to them in the Hong Kong ministerial, for the success of the Doha Development Round (DDR) under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
Mentioning the forthcoming WTO mini-ministerial in Geneva, the chamber said it would be held at a time marked by acute international economic crisis arising from spiralling prices of petroleum, shortage of foodgrains and declining balance of trade for the developing countries, particularly the LDCs.
The forthcoming Ministerial in Geneva, the MCCI said in an editorial comment in the latest issue of its monthly publication, Chamber News, is likely to take a decision to reduce agricultural subsidy. Such a move is likely to further raise the global prices for foodgrains, which will affect the net food-importing countries like Bangladesh the most.
"The food importing LDCs will therefore need to pursue vigorously to get foreign assistance in the form of 'aid for trade', the initiative for which was formally launched at the 2005 Hong Kong Ministerial with funds pledged by the US, the EU and Japan. The LDCs should use these funds for building supply capacity and trade-related infrastructure, which they need to expand their trade." it noted.
It said: "The Doha Round has been plagued with stalemate and debacles ever since it was launched in 2001. The revised texts published by the WTO for negotiations at the Geneva mini-ministerial due to be held towards the end of the current month (July 2008) show how divergent the view-points of developed and developing countries are for the agricultural and industrial goods trade. Meanwhile, the French President while addressing the European Parliament in Strasbourg reportedly said on July 10, 2008 that the right conditions were not in place to reach a new global trade deal. Earlier, the G-8 Group of the rich countries in a joint statement after the Summit in Japan on July 07, 2008 did not commit themselves to conclusion of a comprehensive WTO agreement so as to allow agricultural and non-agricultural goods' market access."
According to the chamber, "a failed Doha Round will harm every country, specially the world's poorest, represented by the group of LDCs." "It may be recalled that the goal of making the Doha Round a 'Development Round' was to increase global income by as much as US$520 billion and lift an additional 144 million out of poverty. The LDCs, thus, have a stake to secure tangible benefits from the Geneva mini-ministerial. These countries will not be able to raise their minuscule share of world trade -- less than 1.0 per cent of the world total unless more pro-active measures are taken to ease their integration into the multilateral trading system'', it observed.
It stated: "The first priority of the LDCs is to obtain greater specificity of the duty- and quota-free market access that developed countries promised them in the Hong Kong Ministerial. The Hong Kong deadline for achieving unrestricted access for the mandated 97 per cent of tariff lines is 2008 or 'no later than the start of the implementation period' of the Doha Round commitments. No timeframe was specified for removing barriers to all the LDC exports. LDCs should call upon developed countries to grant 'commercially meaningful' duty- and quota-free access to 97 per cent of their tariff lines by the end of this year (2008). "Also, as called upon in the Maseru (Lesotho) Declaration of February 2008, the LDCs should seek more precision on the products that trading partners will include in the 97 per cent of tariff lines, as well as the phase-in period they envisage for granting full access for all LDC exports. They should also demand from the developed countries to specify, on a line-by-line basis, when they would extend coverage to the remaining three per cent. The phase-in should be completed by the end of the Doha Round implementation period at the latest", it added.
"Unrestricted access will not lead to significantly increased exports unless it is accompanied by simplified rules of origin. The LDCs should therefore ask the WTO members to base the new rules of origin on the model agreement they drafted and submitted to the Committee on Trade and Development (CTD). They should also demand for setting up a mechanism under the non-agricultural market access (NAMA) and agriculture modalities to monitor the implementation of simpler and more transparent rules of origin', it noted.
"A key concern of LDCs", the MCCI pointed out, "is how to mitigate the erosion of trade preferences, which will inevitably result from general tariff cuts on agricultural and industrial products. To prevent the erosion of trade preferences, the Maseru Declaration suggests that the rich importing countries be allowed to phase in tariff cuts on certain products of export interest to the LDCs, mostly textiles and clothing, over 15 years (around three times longer than the standard period).
"In the area of services, although the LDCs are formally exempt from making new market access commitments, many are under pressure to make additional commitments, especially in telecommunications and financial services. On the other hand, the LDCs do not get access to the developed countries, and also to a number of developing countries, for their service providers, in particular their unskilled labour under Mode-4.
"Major markets for service providers are the EU and the US, but their access is impeded by immigration laws (as in the US) or natural aversion (as in the EU) to opening borders to foreigners who might compete for jobs and seek long-term residency in 'fortress Europe'. The LDCs should intensify their efforts to get preferential treatment for their service providers in the WTO member countries. At the same time, these countries should work seriously on capacity building of their manpower to derive the benefits of Mode-4 under the GATS," it added.
