Recommendations given to WTO negotiators
Zakki P. Hakim, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Providing more protection to farmers against surging imports and nurturing agriculture-based manufacturing were two of a raft of suggestions submitted to Indonesian negotiators ahead of the WTO's Sixth Ministerial Meeting in Hong Kong in December.
The recommendations were handed over to the negotiating team on Wednesday by a group representing industry players and the public.
"The negotiating team has received the recommendations and will study them shortly," group coordinator Mohamad Oemar, who is also the director for multilateral trade and industry at the ministry of foreign affairs, told The Jakarta Post.
Created in a series of workshop titled Formulating Strategic Development Position ahead of the WTO's Sixth Ministerial Meeting and organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Trade, Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) and Malaysia-based Third World Network, the suggestions came after a number of complaints by industry players, who said they had been left out of the WTO negotiation process.
Stakeholders have also frequently questioned whether the team's stance in the WTO negotiations really represented the national interest.
The workshop, the first in the country, had working group sessions in which stakeholders formulated recommendations they believed were in line with the national interest. They included creating positions and strategies for talks in agricultural and industrial goods and services, development issues and those of trade facilitation.
Among the recommendations for agriculture: that the government be required to protect farmers and their lands; be made to secure farmers' access to water; and be required to provide protection against surging imports in the form of subsidies or other protections.
Others include efforts to promote agro-based manufacturing and ensure food security and sustainable rural development.
Regarding the Non-Agriculture Market Access (NAMA) talks, the working group recommended the country fight for the exclusion of fisheries and forestry from NAMA negotiations -- arguing they should be included in agriculture.
The group also worked out a detailed formula to slash import duties for industrial goods.
Development should be the country's top priority ahead of other issues such as trade and its liberalization, which the group said should only be seen as a financing instrument for development. Poverty alleviation and welfare enhancement were also paramount, it said.
Oemar hoped the workshop would be the first step for stakeholders as they got further involved in the WTO negotiation process.
The recommendations come with the WTO under pressure to get results in Hong Kong and prevent the talks from collapsing as they did at the last ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico, in 2003.
Negotiators in the WTO headquarters in Geneva are hoping countries can iron out sensitive differences before the Hong Kong meeting, leaving enough room for the ministers to make "final touches" there.
Government officials have reported that the Cancun meeting collapsed when countries tried to settle delicate issues during the event without the proper preliminary talks before.
Indonesian Ambassador to the WTO Gusmardi Bustami said that the next three months would be a crucial time, in which negotiators in Geneva would be hard at work trying to resolve the big stumbling blocks.