Hectic efforts on to bring a Nairobi declaration

NAIROBI, Dec 18: The delegates of the members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) spent almost whole night for reaching a consensus to strike a deal at the 10th ministerial conference in Nairobi.
Thursday night was tensed as draft text of declaration, placed to the members, drew objections mostly from developing countries. To bridge the gaps, they were asked to submit their own textual proposals.
That’s why the formal closing session is rescheduled to be held from Friday afternoon to evening (Kenyan time). Members have been working intensely to finalise the draft since morning.

Both the conference chairperson Amina Mohamed and director general of the WTO Roberto Azevedomade made it clear that they wouldn’t extend the conference for another day. Many delegates opined that draft text may make it clear that Nairobi ministerial would not going to finish with a ‘LDC package’, as predicted on Thursday.
In fact, the proposed draft text of declaration included relaxation of Rules of Origin (ROO) and service waiver for LDCs. But, there is no development on ‘commercially meaningful’ duty-free, quota-free (DFQF) market access for the LDCs while filing this report at 3.00pm (Bangladesh Standard Ttime).
United States of America (USA) continued its stance for not allowing 100 per cent DFQF market access to all the LDCs under the WTO framework.
Bangladesh Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed had a bilateral meeting with the United States Trade Representative (USTR) Ambassador Michael Froman in the Kenyan capital on Thursday afternoon (Kenyan time).
Neither DFQF nor revival of suspended GSP trade facilities for Bangladesh got any positive note from the USTR.
In a short briefing session with selected journalists, USTR also ruled out providing 100 per cent DFQF access for Bangladesh, Cambodia and Nepal.
“The duty-free market access is linked with the completion of negotiations under WTO,” he said. Among the LDC group, Haiti and Lesotho continued to oppose 100 per cent DFQF for all LDCs.
The major difference on the proposed text is agriculture. There is a proposal to eliminate export subsidies on agricultural products by 2020 for developed countries and by 2023 for developing countries. But the text did not mention clearly on special safeguard mechanism (SSM) and public stockholding programmes for food security. India, along with some other developing nations, rejected this. (e-mail: [email protected])

- biplab