Oxfam wary of trade plans

GENEVA – Plans pushed by major powers in the World Trade Organisation’s Doha Round will bring little benefit to developing countries and could drive some deeper into poverty, Oxfam warned yesterday.

In a report timed for next week’s WTO Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong, the campaign body said the European Union and the United States had turned what was originally labelled a “development round” into an effort to gain more for themselves. The troubled negotiations, launched in Doha at the end of 2001 with the aim of shaping a new global trade treaty were in fact “on course to benefit businesses in rich countries at the expense of the poorest,” the report declared.”Rich countries have insisted on a number of concessions from poor countries, saying they need to see ‘blood on the floor’ from other WTO members in order to sell the deal back home,” Oxfam official Phil Bloomer said.”Such power politics turn upside down the promises made in Doha,” he declared in a comment accompanying the 38-page study.”On their current course, the negotiations will have little benefit for the poor and may even hurt some developing countries.”The report, ‘Blood on the Floor: how the rich countries have squeezed development out of the Doha negotiations’, said that on the three key Round fronts – farm trade, industrial tariffs and services – developing countries were under pressure to give up vital interests.And it urged the nations of Africa, Latin America and Asia to ensure they were not coerced into signing up to an overall bad deal even if it was sweetened with a so-called ‘development package’ – as suggested by the EU among others.The Hong Kong meeting, from December 13 to 18, was originally set to endorse an outline for a final agreement to be concluded by the end of 2006.But officials and diplomats now say no major advance is likely next week.Instead, both developed and developing countries – still far apart on key issues – are looking to another gathering by the middle of next year to try to resolve differences.Oxfam – sceptical, like many other non-governmental organisations working on development and poverty, over big power intentions from the start of the Round – said that in agriculture rich countries had not delivered on promises.They had made no real commitment to end dumping of subsidised farm goods on poor country markets or to open up more to farm produce from developing nations, but were still pressing those nations to open up their markets “even at the expense of their impoverished farmers.”- Nampa-ReutersThe troubled negotiations, launched in Doha at the end of 2001 with the aim of shaping a new global trade treaty were in fact “on course to benefit businesses in rich countries at the expense of the poorest,” the report declared.”Rich countries have insisted on a number of concessions from poor countries, saying they need to see ‘blood on the floor’ from other WTO members in order to sell the deal back home,” Oxfam official Phil Bloomer said.”Such power politics turn upside down the promises made in Doha,” he declared in a comment accompanying the 38-page study.”On their current course, the negotiations will have little benefit for the poor and may even hurt some developing countries.”The report, ‘Blood on the Floor: how the rich countries have squeezed development out of the Doha negotiations’, said that on the three key Round fronts – farm trade, industrial tariffs and services – developing countries were under pressure to give up vital interests.And it urged the nations of Africa, Latin America and Asia to ensure they were not coerced into signing up to an overall bad deal even if it was sweetened with a so-called ‘development package’ – as suggested by the EU among others.The Hong Kong meeting, from December 13 to 18, was originally set to endorse an outline for a final agreement to be concluded by the end of 2006.But officials and diplomats now say no major advance is likely next week.Instead, both developed and developing countries – still far apart on key issues – are looking to another gathering by the middle of next year to try to resolve differences.Oxfam – sceptical, like many other non-governmental organisations working on development and poverty, over big power intentions from the start of the Round – said that in agriculture rich countries had not delivered on promises.They had made no real commitment to end dumping of subsidised farm goods on poor country markets or to open up more to farm produce from developing nations, but were still pressing those nations to open up their markets “even at the expense of their impoverished farmers.”- Nampa-Reuters

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