WTO steals limelight as ASEAN thrashes out accords

WTO steals limelight as ASEAN thrashes out accords

Luke Hunt, Agence France-Presse, Vientiane

Some 16 regional countries wrapped-up a three day conference
here on Friday, pledging to promote global trade when the WTO
meets in Hong Kong later this year, to reduce poverty and combat
record oil prices.

The talks were designed by the 10-nation Association of South
East Asian Nations (ASEAN) to further its own free trade agenda.

But it was the World Trade Organization (WTO) summit in Hong
Kong in December that grabbed the lion's share of attention with
trade and economic ministers raising hopes of a breakthrough that
could lead to the implementation of the Doha liberalization
round.

Delegate spokesman for India S.N. Melon said the WTO talks
were at an advanced stage, with negotiators plotting a roadmap
which could deliver success at the summit.

"The general view is for some kind of breakthrough, hopefully
by next month or mid-November," he told journalists.

ASEAN also pledged its support for the implementation of the
Doha round which ran into a deep impasse at the 2003 WTO meeting
at the Mexican beach resort of Cancun.

This was mainly due to differences over farm trade and market
access for services, and negotiators have been struggling since
to get the negotiations back on track in time for a broad
agreement in Hong Kong.

Pushing for the talks in Hong Kong to succeed, the United
States, European Union and a handful of other key players,
including Australia, will meet in October in Switzerland to try
to keep the talks going.

On Thursday, China, Japan and South Korea said they would work
towards a successful resolution in Hong Kong while Australian
Trade Minister Mark Vaile added there was an even chance of
success.

Vaile said that for Hong Kong to succeed, the ministerial
conference had to deliver a formulae for reducing tariffs and
subsidies to allow the implementation of Doha by the end of next
year.

Whilst ASEAN ranks and its dialogue partners might have been
upbeat on the WTO talks, others were not totally convinced by the
positive tone.

Jonathan Hopfner a trade specialist and journalist with
U.S.-based BNA publications, said it was unlikely the deadlines
for a swathe of Free Trade Agreements (FTA) over the next five
years will be met.

"When you're talking about Australia, Japan and South Korea,
agriculture and services are the big issues and there's a lot of
arguments about rules of origin and the free movement of labor
across borders.

"There's almost no attempt to address any of these issues."

"You'll get agreements but they will be so hobbled with
exceptions for sensitive sectors that they're not really going to
be free trade agreements at all," Hopfner said.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia,
Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, and is
aiming to create a fully integrated economic community by 2020.

Further FTAs are being thrashed out with Australia, China,
Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and India.

In a bid to deal with historically high oil prices ministers
raised the prospect of constructing an east Asian oil stockpile.

But the sensitive issues of where it would be located and how
it would be paid for -- with crude hovering around US$65 a
barrel -- were not dealt with and referred to a working
committee.

This prompted a playful response from Australia's Vaile, who
quipped: "It's not really something the World bank or the Asian
Development bank are likely to fund."

Vaile said despite complaints over too many ministerial
talkfests -- Lao bemoaned too many meetings were proving too
expensive -- countries had to be prepared to invest the time.

"Look at what's been achieved in terms of strengthening the
regional architecture in the last four or five years," he said.
"Some of the challenges we confronted with the region then have
just totally just dissipated."