Developing Countries Demand Release of 'Details' of WTO Draft

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, September 14, 2003

Developing Countries Demand Release of 'Details' of WTO Draft

A majority of the countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on Saturday questioned the absence of "important details" in the final declaration draft of the 5th WTO ministerial meeting.

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A majority of the countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on Saturday questioned the absence of "important details" in the final declaration draft of the 5th WTO ministerial meeting.

Representing 92 of the 146 WTO member economies, the groups of less developed countries (LDC) and Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP), plus the African Union (AU) regretted this absence in the project presented on Saturday, on the eve of the conclusion of the WTO event, in the Caribbean resort of Cancun, in southeastern Mexico.

It is regrettable that there are important details missing in the draft despite the compromise to eliminate subsidies from agricultural exports, Hegel Goutier, spokesman of the three groups, told the press.

He said the compromise for the elimination appears to be "partial" because European Union (EU) Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy said internal subventions for the agricultural producers of the region will not be eliminated.

The LDCs aimed at having more advances on the issue during the ministerial conference, said the spokesman, speaking on the draft prepared under the instructions of Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Derbez, president of the meeting, and handed over to the delegations for its analysis.

Goutier also regretted that the draft favored a greater flexibility of the cotton issue, a situation that the producing countries of Western Africa deemed "disappointing."

Africa, its peasants and its dignity had been "underestimated" in the draft which omitted reductions to internal subsidies for the production of cotton in the United States and the EU countries, Francois Toure, leader of the Association of Cotton Producers of Africa, told the press.

The draft asks the WTO to consult international organizations on the diversification of the economies of the countries that depend on the production of cotton, but does not mention reductions on internal subventions.

Goutier considered the document left aside 10 million Africans "without hope" in Benin, Mali, Chad and Burkina Faso, and produces for them "one more problem" that adds to the drop in the price of cotton on the international market.

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