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Trade talk resumption ‘nothing to celebrate’
8 February 2007
Yesterday Pascal Lamy officially announced the resumption of the Doha round of trade talks saying, “We have resumed negotiations fully across the board”. In his report to the WTO General Council on 7 February 2007, the WTO Director-General said that “political conditions are now more favourable for the conclusion of the Round than they have been for a long time”.
Commenting on this statement, Peter Hardstaff, Head of Policy at the World Development Movement said:
“The resumption of the trade round is nothing to celebrate. Signs are growing that the major trade powers are trying to stitch up a deal amongst themselves and present this as a fait-accompli to the world’s poor.
“The idea of a development round has been blown apart by recent evidence showing that poor countries will lose out from the current talks. Until the EU and US radically change their trade policies, and until they change the way negotiations are conducted, there is no point trying to kick start the round. In resuming talks, Pascal Lamy shows that he is clearly more interested in a deal at any cost than one that will really benefit poor people.”
“The world desperately needs a democratic global system that regulates international trade for the benefit of the environment and development. This isn’t it.”
Ends
Contact: Peter Hardstaff, WDM Head of Policy: 07740 867295
Notes for Editors
[1]Before the Hong Kong Ministerial, the World Bank revised its estimates of global gains from the Doha Round from $832 billion in global gains to $287 billion globally, and to a modest $96 billion in a “likely Doha” scenario. Of this $96 billion developing countries are estimated to gain just $16 billion and this would not be evenly distributed. Instead, the Bank concluded that the gains were expected for only a few large developing countries such as Argentina, Brazil, and India. “Bangladesh and many African countries benefiting from preferences are likely to face losses”. (Anderson and Martin. 2005. “Agricultural Trade Reform and the Doha Development Agenda”, World Bank.)
[2]An economic study by Sandra Polaski of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace concludes: “counter to the commonly held view about the Doha Round, namely that agricultural liberalisation benefits developing countries and therefore is key to achieving the development goals of the Round. In fact, agricultural liberalisation benefits only a relatively small subset of developing countries” Her study shows that those benefiting include Brazil, Argentina, most of Latin America, South Africa, and some Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member countries, notably Thailand. However, according to Polaski, the losers in agricultural liberalisation include many of the world’s LDCs, including Bangladesh and the countries of East Africa and the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa. The Middle East, North Africa, Vietnam, Mexico and India and China also experience losses. (Polaski, S. (2006). Winners and Losers: Impact of the Doha Round on Developing Countries, Carnegie Endowment, Carnegie Endowment Report, March 2006
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/
[3]A study on tariff liberalisation by two US academics concludes: “When the costs of adjustment, deindustrialization, and the loss of policy space for development are juxtaposed with the relatively small projected gains from the deal on the table, it becomes clear why many developing country governments are questioning the utility of the Doha round. In terms of adjustment costs, tariff losses for developing countries could outweigh the benefits by a factor of four… Total tariff losses for developing countries under the NAMA [non-agricultural market access negotiations] could be $63.4 billion, or almost ten times the projected gains.” (K. Gallagher, Boston University and T. Wise, Tufts University; RIS Policy Brief no 22, April 2006 (pp2-3)
http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/
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