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Poor states tackle the rich
11/11/2001 20:33 - (SA)
Alan Wheatley and Robert Evans
Doha - Rich countries came under fierce pressure on Sunday from developing nations to tone down their ambitions for a new round of world trade talks that they say would give a shot in the arm to the ailing global economy.
Although most countries were refusing in public to budge from their opening positions, some officials said they were encouraged by the give-and-take unfolding behind closed doors.
Ministers are desperate to avoid a repeat of the collapse of their last conference in Seattle in December 1999, which failed to bridge differences between rich and poor countries and among the rich themselves.
It was rumoured that the gaps were still so wide that the conference would have to be extended. WTO spokesperson Keith Rockwell said it was too early to say whether that would happen but added that the negotiations were much smoother than they were two years ago.
"This does not mean at all that there will be agreement, but I think the prospects now are certainly far greater than they were 36-48 hours out from the conclusion of the meeting in Seattle," Rockwell added.
Six working groups have been formed to try to reach a consensus on the most sensitive issues, including barriers to farm trade, drug patents and rules to protect the environment.
Poor-country ministers lined up to say they were not ready to give ground, saying a new round of global negotiations would add to their burdens and favour better-off countries.
Uganda's Trade Minister, Edward Rugumayo, said it was in the self-interest of rich countries to do more to help lift developing countries out of poverty so that they could import more.
Poor states are particularly interested in having drug patent rules eased to help them tackle public health crises.
"If you have...a country that is hit by, say, Aids or malaria, who can say that country can be a good trading partner?" Rugumayo asked.
Officials said it was striking how developing countries were banding together to demand in particular that rich states honour past pledges to open their markets.
"For the first time the big guys are coming under heavy pressure and it's coming at them from all directions," one official said.
The US was being urged to increase textile imports and to agree to talks on the anti-dumping actions it takes against countries deemed to be exporting cut-price goods.
But the European Union was perhaps under heaviest fire - to slash and eventually to scrap its export subsidies to farmers and to drop demands for talks on new rules linking trade to environmental protection and competition policy.
- Reuters
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