Trade ministers from African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries worked on Saturday to hammer out a joint position on global trade to protect their mainly agriculture-based economies in hardball negotiations with the world’s most powerful nations.
The one-day meet in the northern resort town of Grand Bay in Mauritius came a day before the Indian Ocean island nation hosted a larger G90 meeting, and only weeks ahead of a fresh bid by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to move past its failed summit last year.
”The Doha [trade round] process must be fully multilateral and the ACP grouping is ready to contribute to such a process in order to find consensus in July,” said acting Mauritian Prime Minister Maurice Jayen Cuttaree.
”We must make sure that these negotiations will lead to fair and equitable results. A multilateral trade system which is efficient and balanced is in the interest of all [ACP] members,” Jayen Cuttaree said.
The WTO’s so-called Doha round of trade liberalisation talks collapsed in Cancun, Mexico, last September, partly because of disagreement over massive agricultural subsidies doled out to producers in the European Union and United States.
The 79 countries in the ACP, which benefits from some privileged trade ties to the European Union, were expected on Sunday to update a joint declaration issued ahead of the Cancun talks.
That position calls on the world’s richest countries to slash tariffs and export subsidies while ensuring market access for ACP nations’ exports, primarily agricultural products and textiles.
Jayen Cuttaree underlined the need to maintain the ACP’s pursuit of fair trade deals between rich and poor countries in the Doha round, named after an initial set of talks held in the Qatari capital three years ago.
”It is especially indispensable for weak and vulnerable developing countries like our own, whose economic pull in the world is very weak,” he said.
”The big developed countries can negotiate bilateral deals and seal free-trade agreements and choose their partners. We don’t have this possibility. Only a well-regulated trade system can protect the rights of small economies,” he added.
The ACP’s 35 ministers and about 200 delegates in Grand Bay were to be joined in Mauritius on Monday by other members of the G90, which includes the ACP states, the African Union and a bloc of the world’s least-developed nations.
WTO talks were also scheduled to pick up where Cancun left off next week but have been delayed. No new date has been announced. — Sapa-AFP