Zambia firm on reforming global trade: official

Zambian Minister of Commerce Dipak Patel has said that his country stands firm on reforming global trade, The Post newspaper reported Monday.

Patel, who chairs least developing countries (LDCs) at the World Trade Organization (WTO), was quoted as saying here in an interview ahead of the mini-ministerial meeting in Geneva this week, that he will not in any way back track on LDC proposals.

The meeting is for the 149 members to agree on the modalities for implementation of the Doha development agenda (DDA).

Patel said there are enough pointers to show that rich counties will remain intransigent.

"However, the failure of the DDA is of serious consequence to the LDCs and all developing countries. If globalization and international trade are dealt with on a bilateral basis, which recently, Ms. (Susan) Schwab, the United States trade representative, suggests would be the alternative, then we will have little, if any, leverage in negotiations and that would be disastrous for all poor countries," he said.

"We have, therefore, been on the offensive and taken our own initiative and formally tabled the LDCs proposal on what we want under the simplified rules of origin, and will this week formally table our proposals on what we want under the duty free quota free regime," Patel said.

The Zambian minister pledged to support the position of the developing countries that are refusing the irrational demand by the European Union and United States to have developing countries reduce their industrial tariffs to a level, which by all accounts will mean de-industrialization.

Source: Xinhua