Indonesia supports calls of a new trade round talks

Indonesia supports calls of a new trade round talks

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesia will firmly support calls to hold a new round of
multilateral trade negotiations -- now called "work program" --
to ensure the continuation of trade liberalization, a senior
government official said on Monday.

"A new work program must be launched, otherwise industrialized
countries which have been suffering from an economic downfall
following the Sept. 11 attacks, will tend to adopt protectionist
policies," director general for international cooperation at the
office of the Minister of Trade and Industry Hatanto
Reksodipoetro told the Jakarta Post over the phone from Doha,
Qatar, where representatives from over 140 countries debated
whether to launch a series of talks in areas ranging from
agricultural trade to industrial tariffs.

This is one of the most difficult issues to settle at the
current World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial meeting, which
will end on Tuesday.

Hatanto said that if developed countries move toward
protectionism, Indonesia's economy would be adversely affected as
the country's exports were highly dependent on those markets.

Minister of Trade and Industry Rini Soewandi said earlier this
month that she was optimistic the WTO meeting would agree on
launching a new round of multilateral trade negotiations.

Indonesia had benefited greatly from the multilateral trading
system, Rini said, citing last year's non oil and gas exports of
US$47 billion.

However, such optimism is likely to receive challenges from
some countries that see no point in a new work program at all.

The last work program, at that time called a trade round, was
enacted at the 1994 Uruguay Round. It is a set of negotiations
involving many countries trying to get agreements on lowering
customs and barriers to each others goods.

In 1999, there was hope that the WTO ministerial meeting in
Seattle, United States, would launch a work program, but it
failed following an unresolved dispute between the U.S and the
European Union.