RP leads new WTO bloc of developing nations

The Philippines, Indonesia and 14 other developing countries are creating a strategic alliance to boost their bid for more substantial agricultural trade reforms in the ongoing talks at the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The alliance will initially work to ensure developing countries will maintain their  special products (SPs) and special safeguard measures (SSMs) meant to protect their respective agriculture industries against the onslaught of cheap imported farm produce from richer members of  the trade body.

Agriculture Assistant Secretary Segfredo Serrano Jr., the country’s designated farm trade negotiator currently in Geneva, Switzerland, met with his Indonesian counterparts to craft a  joint statement and declaration. Serrano read the statement, which was signed by 14 other country delegates from the bloc, before  the 143-member WTO Committee on Agriculture during its meeting last July 18.

The signatories were Cuba, Dominican Republic, Honduras, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Kenya, Mauritius, Nigeria, Panama, Peru, Turkey, Uganda,Venezuela, Zimbabwe, and the Philippines. It stressed the urgency of  ensuring a  more level  playing field in farm trade among developed and developing countries and for poorer members to get a more  equitable deals under WTO rules.

The new bloc scored lopsided global farm trade rules that favor richer countries. As a result, these unfair trade practices undermine developing countries’ ability to support basic  development goals like food and livelihood security and rural development.

In their declaration, the 14 countries said they supported a section from a draft agreement prepared by WTO agriculture committee chairman Harbinson giving  developing countries a certain leeway in  protecting their SPs and allowing them to carry out SSMs and carry out  internal adjustments while trade distortions and inaccessible export markets persist.

The group stressed in unequivocal terms "that no agreement in the modalities of the agriculture negotiations can ever be made unless developing countries were allowed to determine and declare for themselves the number of domestically produced products important to their  food and livelihood security and rural development, with due consideration of their specific situations."

The alliance is also pushing for SSMs as special and differential treatment which the WTO agreement on agriculture should give to developing countries to help weaker economies that are susceptible to import surges from heavily-subsidized rich countries.

"We do not believe that rural livelihood and food security concerns can be negotiated in exchange for market access," Serrano said in the statement.

"These are vital public concerns and are therefore non-negotiable. Yet the provisions which developing countries are asking in order to address these serious issues have not been favored with meaningful engagement by key parties in these negotiations. We  believe that trade-offs are unacceptable given the lack of reform in domestic support," he added.

In the statement, the alliance strongly condemned the fact that their domestic markets "have been deluged by foreign competition that are heavily supported by trade distorting export competition and domestic support measures to the extent that even tariff, their only available instrument of defense and protection, are being dismantled in the guise of free trade."