Indonesian Trade Minister Mari Pangestu chaired the second session of the WTO Ministerial Conference on Tuesday. One of her main tasks was to ensure that all speakers in the general session were strict with their three minutes time limit.
But she spoke for about four minutes about the vital role of free trade for Indonesia. “Is it true that I exceeded my time?” a smiling Mari responded when told that she has broken a fundamental WTO rule.
Funny at times, but in general Tuesday’s general session was fairly boring, because practically all speakers, including from Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Nigeria, reiterated the same commitment to make sure that the Doha Round will be concluded before the early 2010 deadline and on the importance of free trade.
As in the UN General Assembly, delegates often left the conference after their head of delegation addressed the session.
The US Trade Representative Ron Kirk failed to offer a much awaited breakthrough in his speech. Instead he set the condition that the US was ready to move forward if developing nations opened their markets faster.
“The creation of new trade flows and meaningful market openings, particularly in key emerging markets, is required to fulfill the development promise of Doha,” Kirk pointed out.
Brazil’s Foreign Minister Celso Amorim rebuked the US.
“It is unreasonable to expect that concluding the Round would involve additional unilateral concessions from developing nations,” Amorim responded.
Outside the building, anti-WTO activists were camping around the conference building.
Activists from Our World Is Not For Sale (OWINFS) accused WTO of excluding voices of millions
of people affected by the WTO agenda of global deregulation and liberalization.
A UK-based NGO, War On Want, distributed statements, condemning the EU for trying to get what it wants by dealing directly (bilaterally) with individual countries, a move seen as an effort to make it easier to bully poor countries. “For years, rich countries have dominated trade talks, demanding more and more concessions from poorer and less powerful states,” it says.
On Monday evening, Minister Mari also hosted a discussion with NGO activists from Indonesia.
Lutfiyah Hanim from Third World Network, Indah Sukmaningsih from the Institute for Global Justice and Edhiarto Sitinjak from the Confederation of Indonesian Labor Unions criticized the government for not being strong enough to counter industrialized countries who often pushed their own agenda at the cost of Indonesian laborers, and Indonesian domestic products.
The minister, a former researcher on international trade, listened carefully to the activists and patiently countered their arguments.
“I am myself a former NGO activist,” said Mari of her ‘open approach’ to the activists.
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