Implications for developing countries
Implications for developing countriesBy Kabanda Chulu
Wednesday July 30, 2008 [13:43]
Global trade talks collapsed on Tuesday after the United States pledged to remove minimal subsidies but wanted massive concessions in emerging markets such as China and India. Commerce minister Felix Mutati said there was need to negotiate and define challenges posed by agriculture subsidies given to farmers in developed countries and their implications on the markets of least developing countries (LDCs).
“As LDCs we don’t see the United States and European Union removing subsidies offered to their farmers at the moment but we have to continue discussions that will eventually lead to complete removal of subsidies because this failure to progress at WTO level is a disaster that will have negative implications among developing countries,” said Mutati. According to the Bridges trade newsletter, the talks collapsed after the United States, China and India failed to compromise on farm import rules and WTO director general Pascal Lamy informed trade ministers that convergence could not be reached after 10 days of talks which made little progress.
The stalled meeting that was held at the WTO headquarters in Geneva was seen as a last chance for the Doha trade round especially that the United States and other national elections would make negotiations difficult over the coming years. “While farm import safeguards currently exist in rich and poor countries, they are rarely used and the dispute over the current proposals concerns the threshold for when developing nations can sharply raise their tariffs, and how high those taxes can rise,” it stated. “But the United States accused China and India of insisting on allowances to raise farm tariffs above even their current levels but the United States argued that this will violate the spirit of the trade round which is supposed to help poorer countries develop their economies by boosting their exports of farm produce.” The WTO Doha trade talks were launched in 2001 in the hope of boosting the world economy and helping poor countries, but have repeatedly stalled amid deep divisions between rich and poor nations.
Labels: FARM SUBSIDIES, FELIX MUTATI, GLOBALISATION, WTO
posted by MrK @ 9:33 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home