Launch pad for Doha Agenda

Trade ministers from all members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) concluded their week-long series of meetings in Hong Kong on Sunday evening, producing an expected, but watered down framework for negotiations. This framework contains a set of formulae and numbers for reduction of tariffs and subsidies; and should serve as a "launch pad" for the four-year-old Doha Development Agenda negotiations to move forward sufficiently to conclude the negotiation round by the end of 2006. However, that time line seems overly ambitious.

Although the trade ministers discussed only frameworks, not substance, anti-globalization activists, numbering around 5,000, continued to cloud the meetings, with their rowdy and sometimes violent protests. The protests were anticipated, and trade ministers were not at all influenced by them as they continued on with the business at hand during each meeting.

It was not protests outside the meeting hall that influenced negotiations, but rather each minister's national interests. As in the previous ministerial meeting, agriculture remained the biggest hurdle in Hong Kong. The bone of the contention remains the same: Developed countries, especially the EU members and the U.S., held firm and continued to play the agriculture card to maintain a strong bargaining position and get concessions in other sectors, such as in the non-agricultural market access (NAMA) and services.

The developed countries seemed to forget that the current round of negotiations was to conclude the Doha Development Agenda. With this being a development agenda, it should cater to the needs of developing countries. Development should have been the main driver behind negotiations on agriculture, NAMA and services. But, that has not been the case. And we can say the results of the Hong Kong meeting did not live up to the promise of this development agenda.

From an Indonesian perspective, things went fairly well in Hong Kong. The meetings accommodated Jakarta's interests in terms of protecting special products (SP) that domestic consumers depend on for food security and farmers depend on for financial security. With the inclusion of this special product clause, this nation can be sure that it will be able to allow subsistence rice farmers to keep their prices relatively high despite tight competition -- lower priced imports from neighboring countries -- by maintaining high import tariffs. In addition, the Hong Kong meeting also granted developing countries the right to protect their products whenever there is an unexpected surge in imports through the special safeguard mechanism (SSM).

Indonesian negotiators have been fighting for these two issues via the G-33 grouping of 44 developing countries, which Indonesia currently chairs. How much can this nation capitalize on the SP and SSM clauses will again depend on the strength and capacity to negotiate them next year. Developed countries will not just give away these things for free, instead they will demand something return. The area that must be watched closer, is the NAMA and the service sector.

With neighboring countries, we have been seen as too generous in our negotiations with regard to NAMA and services. This possibly is quite understandable as the country's negotiating team focused too much on protecting its subsistence farmers rather than protecting its businesses. Therefore, we encourage our negotiating team to look again more carefully at our commitment under NAMA, and whether it could be detrimental to domestic industry or not. It would be good for them to consult with domestic business players. In terms of the services sector, we should also be more careful about giving commitments. We should join forces with other developing countries to demand freer movement of workers, from developing to developed countries, in return for the opening of modern service sectors for developed countries.

These issues would add spice to next year's negotiations. Judging from the past four years of negotiations under the Doha Agenda, next year's negotiations will remain tough, and the issue of development will continue to be sidelined. Therefore, it might be too optimistic to expect that this Doha round of negotiations can be completed by the end of 2006, as targeted.

If the new Doha round cannot be completed by the end of 2006, we should not consider it a failure. After all, it is just an artificial deadline. If we cannot make it, it is not going to be a disaster for the global trading system, as the WTO rules remain in place. A disaster could result when we sign something that is very unfair to developing countries and then our farmers and workers lose their jobs as a result of premature market openness. We must question as to why it must it be one year. We must say that we can take time, two years, three years or even five years as long as it takes to get the optimum deal, a deal that lives up to the development goals as promised by the Development Agenda.