RI vows to protect agro-products

RI vows to protect agro-products

Evi Mariani and Johannes Simbolon, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government has vowed to continue protecting certain
agricultural commodities against liberalization and will align
with tens of other poor countries to block any efforts at the
World Trade Organization (WTO) talks to liberalize trade on the
commodities.

Minister of Agriculture Bungaran Saragih told the European
Union's Ministers of Agriculture on Monday that basic food
commodities should be exempted from liberalization because they
play a crucial role in alleviating poverty and economic
development in many developing countries.

"Then it should be agreeable that some limited number of
strategic food staples be totally exempt from further tariff
reduction and expansion of tariff quota as well as automatic
access to special guard mechanisms," Bungaran said in Taormina,
Italy.

Bungaran was invited to the EU's Agricultural Minister's
informal meeting to present the perspective of "South Hemisphere"
on the liberalization of agricultural commodities.

The EU's ministers held the meeting to review the results of
the recent WTO ministerial talks in Cancun, Mexico, according to
documents made available to The Jakarta Post on Monday.

Earlier, Pos M. Hutabarat, director general for industrial
cooperation and international trade, said the government would
continue to block any efforts to liberalize trade on strategic
farm products at WTO talks together with the countries grouped in
the so-called Group 33.

Each member of the group has their own strategic products, but
Indonesia has named rice, corn, soybean and sugar as strategic
products. The group wants that each country is allowed to set
their own import duties on the commodities.

Group 33, which was launched during the Cancun summit and was
co-founded by Indonesia, comprises 33 countries, including the
Philippines, Pakistan and a number of African and South American
countries.

He said that Minister of Industry and Trade Rini M.S. Soewandi
would try to take spare time to visit Honduras -- a member of
Group 33 -- during her official visit to Brazil next month.

"We will fight for special products again in the senior
official meeting on Dec. 15 and the sixth WTO summit in 2004," he
said.

The fifth WTO ministerial summit earlier this month decided to
arrange a senior official meeting to resume talks on Dec. 15 in
WTO headquarters in Geneva.

It also decided to have the sixth WTO ministerial meeting in
August next year in Hong Kong, in a bid to meet the deadline of
the completion of the Doha Rounds talks on Jan. 1, 2005.

Pos said during the Cancun meeting, Indonesia had gained some
prominence thanks to its role in co-establishing Group 33.

Indonesia was invited to meet with developed countries.

"We (Indonesia) have never been invited to the 'Green Room'
before because they (developed countries) thought we would
peacefully comply with any decisions made in the meetings," Pos
recalled.

The "Green Room" is a term referring to the exclusive meeting
of developed, influential countries in the WTO. The forum has
often been blasted, especially by developing countries, as not
transparent.