, Singapore, Oct. 3 (UPI) -- This will be a last-ditch effort. Is there enough common ground among the 142 members of the World Trade Organization to launch a new round of trade liberalization talks?
While the United States and the European Union argue a new round is needed to help address growing concerns about globalization and sagging economies, many developing countries argue they have yet to see the benefits of the 1994 agreements.
An informal ministerial meeting of WTO members will convene Oct. 13-14 in Singapore ahead of a planned ministerial meeting in Doha, Qatar, in November.
"This meeting is a follow up from an earlier informal ministerial meeting in Mexico, to discuss the prospects of a New Round," said a spokesperson at the Singapore's Ministry of Trade and Industry. The spokesperson said the final details of the meeting have yet to be finalized, as is the list of attendees.
However, diplomatic sources indicated Japan, the United States, as well as Malaysia, Pakistan, and South Korea are expected to attend. A WTO media officer also confirmed WTO Director-General Mike Moore will be present. "Singapore believes in the importance of the multilateral trade system and hopes to contribute to the WTO process," the spokesperson said.
The WTO has just unveiled the draft text of a declaration to be adopted in Doha, which has received a mixed reception, and this document will be at the forefront of the Singapore meeting's agenda. The two documents, a 7-page draft Ministerial Declaration and an 11-page list of implementation proposals for adoption by government, are expected to form the framework for the Doha negotiation.
However, developing countries have expressed their disappointment with the proposed document, even if the link between labor standards and trade (supported by the United States) appears to have been left out. The blueprint calls for concessions from the United States, the European Union and Japan in opening up their markets for textiles, steel and agriculture, and calls for a re-negotiation of antidumping laws used to block cheap imports. And it largely ignores environmental demands from the European Union. But developing nations have argued that the WTO needs to address their concerns about starting a new round of trade talks before fully implementing existing WTO Agreements.
Only recently, Malaysia Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad warned his fellow members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations about the dangers of globalization and the WTO's next round of negotiations. His comments have been echoed by Indian Trade Minister Thiru Murasoli Maran, who is calling for the resolution of the so-called "implementation" issue before agreeing to a new round. Several developed countries want to see progress on implementing concessions made in 1994 during the Uruguay Round of trade talks.
Egypt, Jamaica and Tanzania have also been resisting a new round.
The WTO aims to kick-start a new round of trade talks at the fourth ministerial meeting on Nov. 9-13. The last meeting in Mexico at the end of August failed to narrow differences over the scope and extent of the planned talks. The aim of that meeting was in part to help avoid in Doha a repeat of the Seattle failure in 1999.
There are five stumbling blocks to the launch of the new round: agriculture, the environment, a review of implementation of measures under the 1994 Uruguay Round trade pact, the creation of new global rules, including those for investment and competitive policies, and a review of exiting WTO regulations, such as antidumping rules.
Agriculture is one the most difficult areas facing the WTO as it prepares to launch the new round. While the Cairns Group is calling for farm trade to be governed under the same regulation as industrial goods in order to accelerate liberalization, many other members -- especially the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Norway and Switzerland -- are trying to maintain agricultural subsidies to protect farming.
A key issue for the EU, as well as for a number of other nations, is greater environmental provisions in WTO dialogue, which some view as protectionist measures.
The issue of antidumping was one of the controversial issues that led to the collapse of the Seattle meeting. Developing countries are pushing for greater access to markets in the industrialized world and have argued any new talks should include discussions on anti-dumping rules that keep them from flooding markets with cheap goods. Japan, frustrated by the U.S. antidumping charges against a wide range of Japanese steel exports to the United States, is also seeking tighter rules for launching antidumping measures under the WTO.
However, the United States finds antidumping to be a very sensitive issue. The United States is not the only nation to employ such penalties, with India, South Africa, Argentina and Brazil having launched antidumping cases in the past four years. Nevertheless, the preservation of measures to impose punitive duties and tariffs on what Washington sees as unfairly cheap imports is important to maintain Congressional support for trade.
