‘Tread cautiously at Bali WTO conference’

Sifelani Tsiko Business Correspondent
African governments have been urged to tread cautiously at the forthcoming 9th World Trade Organisation Bali ministerial conference and avoid “wholesale” approvals of trade liberalisation packages that may lead to the erosion of labour rights, de-industrialisation, unemployment and rising poverty levels, a trade policy analyst says.
Southern Eastern Africa Trade Negotiations (SEATIN) policy analyst Mr Thomas Deve warned that unchecked opening up of Africa’s markets to the European Union will destabilise Africa’s economies and marginalise African farmers. “Unless African negotiators gain substantial modifications in the agreements to curb European demands for rapid movement towards trade reciprocity, the agreements will be very costly for Africans in terms of revenue losses, adjustment costs associated with de-industrialisation and its undermining effect on regional integration,” he said.

Mr Deve said this at a one-day workshop which was held recently to discuss Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), the forthcoming 9th World Trade Organisation Ministerial in Bali and the emerging phenomenon of rural investments and land grabs in Southern Africa.
He urged African governments to refuse trade packages that reinforce trade imbalances and inequities that have serious implications on the livelihoods of people on the continent.

“The forth-coming 9th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Bali, Indonesia,  gives media and communication activists a great opportunity to debate and advise our governments why we need to cautiously embrace proposals that come out of a context dominated by corporate-led globalisation and attempts to reinforce and expand its inherent inequity across the globe,” he said.

“We do not want Africa and other Third World countries to remain on the margins of global trade but that we must as peoples of Africa demand that any further and future work on the WTO should focus on redressing the inadequacies and imbalances of the WTO and on the roll-back of iniquitous agreements.”

The 9th Ministerial Conference will be held in Bali, Indonesia from December 3 to 6. Discussions in Bali will focus on three proposals that include discussion some changes to the rules governing trade in agricultural to fix existing unfair and asymmetrical WTO rules on agricultural trade and address some of the issues of the Least Developed Countries.

The third aspect of the Bali proposal would be to consolidate a new agreement on Trade Facilitation which policy analysts fear would undermine the benefits from the first two to such an extent as to render the deal net negative.

African countries and others in the Third world are pursuing among other issues, the need for meaningful and enhanced access for their exports to the EU as well as the proposal to subsidise domestic food production in support of food security.

They also want the long-standing proposals by African and other developing countries to redress the imbalances in the existing WTO agreements, such as the Special and Differential Treatment (SDT) proposals, the package of policies for LDCs and the implementation issues that are still outstanding to be resolved.

“Corporate-driven globalisation has, together with its ideology of neo-liberalism, lost its legitimacy,” said Mr Deve.
“Its promise of universal prosperity accruing from global liberalisation and deregulation of economic activity has failed to materialise.
“Rather, extreme inequalities have grown, with high concentrations of vast wealth and power among a small and narrowing elite, side-by-side increasing and widespread poverty among the majority of the world’s peoples.”

SEATIN and the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) organised the workshop.