Indonesia struggles to set its own WTO agenda

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.