Mathabo Le Roux
23 July 2008
Johannesburg — SA HAS taken pole position defending developing countries at crucial trade talks in the World Trade Organisation in Geneva, where trade ministers hope to clinch a deal before US President George Bush leaves office.
Taking a strong stand , SA said it was crucial to re-energise investment in agriculture in the face of a global food crisis, but that current agricultural proposals in the negotiations would not achieve this goal.
Trade and I ndustry M inister Mandisi Mpahlwa objected to "pages and pages" of flexibilities included in the agricultural text, which would ease the transition for rich countries, while flexibilities available to developing countries have essentially been eroded by the eleventh hour inclusion of clauses in the industrial market access (Nama) text.
SA raised procedural concerns yesterday, appealing for more time to consider new texts to be put forward on Friday. I t also objected on issues of substance, saying the balance between demands on developed and developing countries is still skewed in favour of the former.
"The agricultural text is converged around the G-20, which put forward a middle ground to reach consensus. There is not a high level of ambition in the text," said Brendan Vickers, a senior researcher with the Institute for Global Dialogue, who is observing the meeting in Geneva. The G-20 is a group of developing states including India, China, Brazil and SA.
Flexibilities available to the European Union (EU) would for instance exclude all agricultural products from liberalisation that are currently excluded under the trade agreement between SA and the EU, he said.
A Doha deal under current proposals would therefore not give SA any new agricultural market access into the EU, while requiring SA to make painful industrial tariff cuts.
Talks since Monday have focused mainly on agriculture. The US has offered to cap overall farm subsidies at $15bn. However, the cut in allowable spending will not eat into actual spending, which is below this level. Developing nations were also unmoved by the EU's offer on Monday to increase cuts in tariffs to 60%, from 54% .
Business Unity SA trade policy director Catherine Grant said the offer was "a recalculation of existing offers" and did not offer any additional concession. New clauses in the Nama text have piled the burden onto developing countries, as these will erode their ability to protect strategic sectors.
The most contentious is an anticoncentration clause, which states that sensitive tariff lines not subject to tariff cuts cannot be concentrated in one sector.
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No matter what the outcome,and it does not sound promising, continue and you WILL reach your goals in the long term.