For immediate release: 21 June 2007
The “G90 Plus” groupings of developing countries, which represents a majority of developing country members at the World Trade Organisation, has warned that development concerns have been left behind in the rush to agree to a deal in the Doha Round.
The “G90 Plus” comprises the ACP (Africa, Caribbean and Pacific) Group, the Africa Group and the Least Developed Countries (LDC) Group. These groups, together with some individual developing countries (including Bolivia and Venezuela) today issued a joint statement entitled “Declaration on Development Concerns and Issues in the Current WTO Negotiations.”
The Declaration was issued at the WTO in Geneva, while the Trade Ministers of the Group of 4 (U.S. European Union, Brazil an India) are meeting in Germany.
The G90 Plus said if the Round is to be completed, the concerns of developing countries must be dealt. But their critical issues have been marginalised or left behind as the negotiations proceeded. They warned that WTO members should not be rushed into agreements because “content cannot be sacrificed for timelines” and “it is more important to get the agreements right than meet deadlines.”
On process, the groups stressed the central importance of transparency, participation and the multilateral process. They expressed concern that the recent WTO negotiating process has been “less than transparent and participatory”.
The G90 Plus said that the majority of members have little or no knowledge of the progress and content of the G4 process. Although two of the G4 members are developing countries, they cannot be expected to carry the responsibility of representing the views of all developing countries.
The groups are concerned they may faced with texts they are asked to consider at very short notice. They warned that “the multilateral system cannot be used to rubber stamp and legitimise decisions made by a few” and called for “full participation of all members in discussion and in preparing the drafts and final texts.”
They also stressed the Round is a “single undertaking” and the need for full and not partial modalities. The G90 Plus said that “all issues that are important to members must be considered in a balanced and equitable manner. The modalities and solutions for all issues therefore have to be considered and settled simultaneously.”
In the full modalities, developing countries’ priority issues must be included in any interim deal in July, said the G90 Plus.
The priority issues include Special and Differential Treatment, Implementation Issues, effective in overall trade distorting support combined with effective disciplines, commodities, preference erosion, cotton, tariff escalation, disciplines on green box subsidies, concerns of LDCs (including duty free and quota free market access), concerns of Small and Vulnerable Economies (SVEs), special products and the special safeguard mechanism for developing countries in agriculture, less than full reciprocity and adequate flexibilities in NAMA, including special flexibilities for paragraph 6 countries and SVEs.
The G90 Plus noted that “Many studies have concluded that most developing countries will gain little or nothing and many will be losers from existing proposals put forward by developed countries”.
Most developing countries cannot benefit in the immediate future from increased market access because of supply constraints and non tariff barriers. Thus, they should not undertake obligations that result in losses for them. We will not accept any modalities and outcome in the NAMA and agriculture negotiations that will lead to in de-industrialisation or more import surges affecting farmers’ livelihoods in developing countries. This would defeat the purpose of the Round’s development objectives.
The G90 Plus also called for the principle of less than full reciprocity (as affirmed in the Doha Declaration) to be respected. Developing countries should undertake less obligations than developed countries.
Moreover, the principle gives developing countries the right “not be expected, in the course of trade negotiations, to make contributions which are inconsistent with their individual development, financial and trade needs.”
The Declaration also states the key positions of the G90 plus on the substance of negotiations on agriculture, NAMA, services, SDT and implementation issues, rules, aid for trade, TRIPS and trade facilitation. It supports many of the positions and proposals of the groupings and individual developing countries in this coalition.
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For more information, please contact:
o Ambassador Gail Mathurin of Jamaica – Coordinator of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Countries Group. Tel: +41-22-908-0706
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