Indonesia struggles to set its own WTO agenda

Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Until late last week, the public remained in the dark about Indonesia's agenda for the World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial summit in Cancun, Mexico.

In his speech to the Indonesian WTO team on Aug. 5, Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Dorodjatun Kuntjoro- Jakti said he would merely follow delegates from India, because Indonesia did not have a stance on issues debated during the WTO talks.

"I will follow Indian delegates because I think India and Indonesia have more or less similar interests in the WTO," he said humorously.

He might be just joking, but he apparently meant to push the nation's WTO team to formulate a clear agenda for the meeting.

Indeed, weeks before the departure of Indonesia's team to Mexico on Sunday, critics said Indonesia did not really know what it was going to do in Mexico.

Susanto Sutoyo, director general for multilateral affairs in economics at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that Indonesia had joined the Cairns group without knowing the benefits it could get from the group.

"Later, we realized that although we (Indonesia) are an agricultural country, we are not an exporter of agricultural produce," Susanto, who is one of Indonesia's key negotiators during the Cancun summit, said in a discussion in July.

The Cairns group consists of agricultural exporting countries led by Australia, which fights for greater market access for agricultural products.

However, prior to their departure to Cancun, the Indonesian WTO delegates seemed to have quite a clear position.

In a position paper distributed last week, the government promised that it would fight for greater market access for local industries while blocking any efforts to cut import duties on the country's strategic products.

It did not specify the strategic products, but press reports said they were corn, rice, soybean, and sugar.

As for liberalization in service sectors, Indonesia will push for the establishment of emergency safeguard measures or ESMs prior to negotiations on the issue.

"Emergency safeguard measures are important for protecting the local service industry," the paper said.

The ESMs can abrogate the liberalization process in case of an emergency situation threatening the life of local industry. The paper revealed that negotiations on ESMs had been stalled for seven years.

The Indonesia delegates will also be considerate in making any agreements regarding four new issues, namely investment, trade facilitation, competition policies and transparency in government procurement.

These four issues have been thorny between developing and developed countries in the previous WTO talks.

Developing countries said they were unprepared to compete with giants from developed countries once these four sectors were liberalized.

The Indonesian national team led by Minister of Industry and Trade Rini M.S. Soewandi will also propose to exclude environmental policies from any WTO rules, as Indonesia fears that many countries will keep using environmental issues to block imports from Indonesia.

Indonesian exporters have reportedly complained that some developed countries reject products from Indonesia just because they are contained in boxes, alleged to be made from illegally cut logs.