OIC trade officials preparing for next WTO talks

Zakki P. Hakim, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Trade officials from the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) member countries started gathering here on Monday for a three-week course on global trade policy and the multilateral trading system.

The Ministry of Finance's secretary-general, Agus Haryanto, said that the course was meant to equip the participants with sufficient knowledge about the issues so that would be better prepared to face the next series of World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations.

"A lack of knowledge about global trade policy is responsible for much of the inability of developing countries to make their case forcefully," said Agus in his speech during the course's opening ceremony.

The three-week course is being organized by the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) in collaboration with the WTO, the government of Indonesia and the Non-Aligned Movement Centre for South-South Technical Cooperation (NAM CSSTC).

Aside from Indonesia, which is a member of the OIC, the 32 trade officials participating in the course come from 21 other OIC member countries -- Afghanistan, Albania, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, Gambia, Guyana, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgistan, Malaysia, Maldives, Mozambique, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Suriname, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uganda and Uzbekistan. The OIC has 57 member countries.

The course will cover all topics concerning the WTO, including basic principles of the multilateral trading system, market access, trade facilitation, agriculture, anti-distortion measures, dispute settlement, accession to the WTO, Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) agreements, government procurement and competition policy.

All those delivering the course are from the Geneva-based WTO secretariat.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs' director for multilateral trade and industry, Mohamad Oemar, said that the course was important as the OIC members were generally developing and least developed countries.

"The course also provides technical assistance for countries planning to join the WTO," he said, adding that some OIC member countries were not yet members of the WTO.

An economic research and statistics division counselor from the WTO, Bijit Bora, stressed that developing countries needed a "greater" voice to ensure that their interests were accommodated in WTO negotiations.

"In order to gain that greater voice, we need to have a stronger base. In that context, the WTO provides a broad range of technical assistance," he said.

Since the establishment of the organization, the developed countries played a dominant role in the WTO talks until the 2003 summit in Cancun, Mexico, where several developing countries, including India, China, Brazil and Indonesia, managed to resist pressure from developed countries to accept their agenda. The meeting ended in deadlock.

During the WTO general council session in Geneva last July, developing countries managed to get the developed countries to accommodate some of their interests.