RI against inclusion of social clause in world trade agreement

RI against inclusion of social clause in world trade agreement

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia is opposing industrial countries'
efforts to link trade with labor conditions in the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) that will be signed in
Morocco next week.

"Indonesia, like other developing countries, is concerned over
efforts to link trade and labor, which will be counter-
productive," Foreign Minister Ali Alatas told reporters here
yesterday.

The United States and France have agreed to push for clauses
on labor conditions to be included in the planned trade
agreement, which will be finalized at a formal meeting of GATT
ambassadors at their April 12-15 meeting in Marrakesh, Morocco.

"The efforts are not productive because they are forced while
the Marrakesh meeting is expected to merely endorse what has thus
far been achieved," Alatas said.

He said the meeting should only clean up the text of the
December agreement, instead of introducing additional clauses.

Meanwhile, Reuters quoted senior diplomats and negotiators as
saying in Geneva that the dispute over links between trade and
labor conditions overshadowing the world trade summit are close
to a solution.

Compromise

They said a compromise on the issue, which has pitted the
United States and France against developing countries, was likely
to be finalized at a formal meeting of GATT ambassadors later on
Thursday.

"We have to keep our fingers crossed but I believe we have a
solution that preserves everyone's rights and interests," a
senior Asian envoy from ASEAN told Reuters.

Andrew Stoler, acting head of the U.S. mission to GATT, the
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, said he hoped an
agreement would emerge from the ambassadors' meeting called by
the world trade watchdog's Director General, Peter Sutherland.

"But nothing is in the bag until it is in the bag," Stoler
said. "I can't say right now that there is a deal, but I
definitely hope so."

A European official said the outlines of a compromise had
emerged at an informal meeting of trade envoys chaired by
Sutherland late on Wednesday. "My guess is he will come forward
with a solution later today (Thursday)," the official said.

Washington has been insisting that the trade-and-labor link --
which developing countries fear could lead to tariffs on their
goods -- be put on the agenda for the World Trade Organization
(WTO) at the meeting in the Moroccan city.

At the April 12-15 gathering, foreign and trade ministers from
121 countries and territories are to sign the final act of the
seven-year Uruguay Round, completed last December cutting trade
barriers and setting up the WTO.

The meeting had been intended as a triumphal finale to the
long negotiations, whose outcome is widely seen as offering a
major boost to the world economy. GATT analysts say its wide-
ranging accords -- which will open up lucrative markets for farm
produce, textiles and services -- amount to an overall cut in
tariffs on industrial goods of around 40 per cent.

Declaration

The ministers are due to issue a declaration committing their
countries to work for a new-shape international trade system,
administered by the WTO and based on market economics, aimed at
eliminating poverty and promoting development.

But the labor issue, raised by the United States late in
March, has threatened to dampen the celebrations and focus
attention on a problem that divides rather than unites developing
and developed countries.

It also seemed likely to derail the establishment at Marrakesh
of a Preparatory Committee, to begin planning the organization
and work of the WTO -- which will absorb the 46-year-old GATT.

U.S. officials demanded, against fierce resistance from
developing countries, that wording be agreed for the declaration
and the PrepCom mandate effectively linking lower workplace
standards and labor costs in many poorer states with the price of
their goods on world markets.

Negotiators from Asia, Africa and Latin America saw this as
camouflage for a desire in industrialized states, where labor
unions fear the effect of greater competition on jobs, to
establish new protectionist barriers. (07/riz)