G-33 upbeat WTO members will accept special treatment offer

Zakki P. Hakim, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Group of 33 developing countries is upbeat about its chances that World Trade Organization members will accept its proposal on the implementation details of special and differential treatment in protecting staple farm products.

WTO general council chairwoman Amina Chawahir Mohamed said the importance of the Special Product and Special Safeguard Mechanism (SP-SSM) has been accommodated in the July 2004 framework, thus the grouping would have to negotiate the details.

"The devil is always in the details," she said in a press conference on the closing day of the G-33 Ministerial Meeting here on Sunday.

Honduras Ambassador for the WTO Dacio Castilio Flores said the grouping had a bigger chance of being heard in the agriculture negotiations considering the G-33 represents almost two-thirds of the world's population. "G-33 is the biggest group in the negotiations, thus chances are now among the biggest one."

Therefore, the grouping has moved forward, Indian Minister of Commerce and Industry Kamal Nath said, "in what would be the possible criteria for special products, in the sense that agriculture to different countries means different things."

"In the U.S., the farmer is a corporation, in India a farmer is subsistence, where he earns less than $1 a day," Nath said.

Earlier this month, the Indonesian-led G-33 had presented a proposal of principles and practical details on how to implement the SP-SSM concept.

The group proposed that the Special Products should not be subject to tariff reductions and "neither of these goods can be subject to commitments on tariff rate quota (TRQ)."

Special Products should also have access to the Special Safeguard Mechanism, which should be automatically triggered in cases of surging import volumes or swings in international prices.

The meeting, which was chaired by Indonesian trade minister Mari E. Pangestu, has sought to strengthen the group's commitment and produced political guidelines for negotiators in undertaking talks at the sixth WTO Ministerial Meeting in Hong Kong in December.

The delegations agreed on a communique on Sunday that would guide the G-33 in making positive contributions to negotiations leading to the July first approximation and the adoption of full modalities during the December meeting.

The G-33, comprises 42 developing countries, however only 18 attended the two-day event. The G-33 aims at ensuring issues on food security, livelihood security and rural development become an integral part of the ongoing WTO trade talks and outcomes, as called for by the Doha Development Agenda.

Delegations spared 10 minutes to hear an appeal from local farmers groups and non-governmental organizations.

In its statement, the alliance said, "the developing countries should unite and be more persistent in opposing the global trade regime controlled by industrial countries, a trade regime that had showed negative impacts to the people in developing countries."

It appealed to the G-33 to include agrarian reform and food sovereignty as basic development policies to increase the prosperity and rights of peasants.

"No country will remain sovereign and advance if they keep depending on their food needs externally," said the statement, read by Achmad Ya'kub of the Federation of Indonesian Peasants Union, a member of Via Campesina International Peasant Movement.