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Members agreed on goodwill, flexibility
World Trade Organization (WTO) member countries have a shared understanding of the importance of goodwill and flexibility in making achievements in the Bali ministerial meeting in December, according to Trade Minister Gita Wirjawan
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orld Trade Organization (WTO) member countries have a shared understanding of the importance of goodwill and flexibility in making achievements in the Bali ministerial meeting in December, according to Trade Minister Gita Wirjawan.
'We've also conformed to the idea that members with objections on a few issues should adjust their 'levels of ambition' and take a more pragmatic approach to what can be achieved in the upcoming Bali meeting,' Gita told The Jakarta Post in an e-mail.
The minister attended an informal trade ministers meeting on Friday of the Doha Development Agenda in Paris, held after a ministerial council meeting of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) from May 29 to May 30.
At the meeting, chaired by Australia, Indonesia called again for a horizontal discussion among WTO members on three issues; trade facilitation, agriculture and development, and a priority to be given to developmental issues, which have been the main interests of developing and least-developed countries (LDC).
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'Little progress has also been seen on the proposal of the G33 Group, while the LDCs have yet to put their proposal on the table.'
Indonesia also emphasized the urgency of attaining a 'balanced' and credible outcome for the ninth WTO Ministerial Conference, to restore confidence in the process and mechanism of negotiations in the world trade governing body and the multilateral trade system in general.
Since the Doha Round talks deadlocked in 2008, many countries worldwide have stepped up efforts to boost flows of goods by creating bilateral, regional or multilateral agreements, a move which supporters of a WTO-wide deal say could create a 'spaghetti bowl' of conflicting rules, and therefore fail to serve global trade.
In its latest review as the host of the Bali meeting, Indonesia regarded the progress of the talks on the 'deliverables' ' trade facilitation, agriculture and LDC-related issues ' in the past month as still not sufficient to reach tangible results at the upcoming meeting.
On the trade facilitation draft deal, members had yet to attain a balance of interests on measures that should be taken by developing countries and LDCs to ease cross-border movements of goods, or the assistance that should be provided by developed countries to assist them in attaining the goals, the Trade Ministry's director general for international trade cooperation, Iman Pambagyo, said.
'Little progress has also been seen on the proposal of the G33 Group, while the LDCs have yet to put their proposal on the table,' he said, referring to proposals by the G33 Group, which comprises 46 developing nations under the initiative of India.
This coalition has demanded an increase in the limits on subsidized food stockpiling to assist poor farmers and guarantee member countries' food security, while developed countries have raised concerns that the intention could go beyond food security as the food stocks could be allocated for exports, which would result in distortions to the international food market.
The increase in the threshold of subsidized food stocks requested by the coalition would require a change to the WTO rules on public stockholding and while many members feel an agreement can still be met in Bali, a few technical issues would need to be deliberated after the meeting.
Instead of paying too much attention to the G33 proposal, negotiators needed to discuss other potential deliverables, particularly the proposal of the G20 tariff-rate quota administration, Iman said.
LDCs are likely to come up with duty-free quota facilities and an extension of periods to implement trade-related intellectual property rights in their proposal slated for submission this month, according to Iman.
