Multilateralism at risk - Beyond Globalisation - 2-3 April 2004, Brussels

Session 5: Trade - a developing country perspective - Summary

Little has been achieved so far in the current round of multilateral trade negotiations in the WTO, which was launched as “The Doha Development Round” in November 2001. Although the deadline for this negotiating round is still some months away (1 January 2005), many intermediate deadlines that had been set in Doha have already been missed. At the Ministerial Conference in Cancun in September 2003 member countries could not agree on a Ministerial Declaration. Many developing countries feel that the results from negotiations are imbalanced and primarily reflect the needs and objectives of developed countries. The session tried to, from a developing country perspective, clarify issues such as why the trade negotiations broke down in Cancun, what the future challenges are, and how to move forward with the Doha trade negotiations.

The first speaker in this session, Ambassador Irumba, presented a developing country perspective on trade negotiations. One of the key questions raised was how developing countries can unite to make their voices heard and provide an effective counterweight to developed countries in the multilateral trade negotiations. It was believed that the G20 - the new alliance of developing countries that emerged in Cancun - can take up this role, and should be taken seriously. It was also stated that developing countries are currently forced to make too many commitments within the WTO and are not consulted before decisions are taken.

The second speaker, Debapriya Bhattacharya, discussed and analysed the Cancun process with its outcomes and setbacks, and considered what is needed in order to move forward. He argued that the negotiations in Cancun very much focused on agriculture, tariff cuts, and the Singapore issues, while implementation issues and Special and Differential Treatment (SDT) never came into focus. Furthermore, it is difficult to idetify why the negotiations collapsed: many factors, such as agriculture, the Singapore issues, lack of time and organisation, and a too heavy agenda, all played their own specific role. It was also believed that the EU lacked understanding on why the Singapore issues and agriculture were so important to the developing countries.

On the issue on how to move forward in the Doha trade negotiations, and on the future challenges to the multilateral trading system, it was believed important to bring in the development dimension into the negotiations, and address issues such as SDT, reciprocity, and the WTO decision-making process. One of the future challenges to the multilateral trading system is considered to be the recent rise in bilateral trade agreements, which tend to discriminate and marginalise developing countries. Other challenges are how to solve the issue of agricultural subsidies to western farmers, and how the enlargement of the EU is going to affect the CAP and EU policies towards developing countries.

The first discussant, Paulo Estivallet de Mesquita, argued that one could detect a weakening commitment towards the Doha mandate among some of the actors, although, the key problem is that the current system within the WTO can very much be characterised as a “regressive system”, which does not benefit those that are in need the most. It was also highlighted that the EU approach to trade negotiations is often inconsistent, and in order to move the trade negotiations forward the CAP should be reformed.

The second discussant, Bachir Hamdouch, commented on the recent increase of regional and bilateral trade agreements. He said that bilateral agreements should be seen as a complement and not a compensation for multilateral trade agreements. Furthermore, it was believed that regional and bilateral trade agreements can only give positive results if they are more aggressive than multilateral agreements. However, the major problem is that bilateral agreements currently tend to be discriminative against developing countries. The issue of market access was also believed to be a key area for developing countries since the gains from increased market access for developing countries are much higher than, for example, increasing aid and assistance to developing countries.

The EC representative, Andrea Nicolaj, claimed that the EU is playing a positive role in supporting developing countries and that many efforts have been made to integrate development issues into the negotiations. On the issue on why the negotiations in Cancun collapsed, a number of questions were raised, such as whether the ministerial conference was managed efficiently and correctly and whether the declarations contained acceptable and sufficient statements. 

Session 5: Speakers

Chair: Dean Spinanger (Research Area Head, Kiel Institute of World Economics)

Speakers: Ambassador Nathan Irumba (Permanent Representative of Uganda to the WTO in Geneva), Debapriya Bhattacharya (Executive Director, Centre for Policy Dialogue, Bangladesh)

Discussants: Paulo Estivallet de Mesquita (Permanent representative of Brazil to the WTO in Geneva), Bachir Hamdouch (Professor National Institute of Statistics and Applied Economics, Rabat, Morroco), Andrea Nicolaj (European Commission, DG Trade)

Session 5 - Papers and Presentations All files are downloadable files are Word documents unless specified otherwise.
	Paper by Ambassador Nathan Irumba
	Multilateral Trade Negotiations: A Post-Cancun Perspective - Debapriya Bhattacharya (Powerpoint)

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