South Africa does not expect an early end to the Doha trade talks and wants imbalances in current proposals addressed before pushing for a conclusion, new Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies said on Friday.
Moves by the Obama administration to engage other countries were welcome, but South Africa would not rush to sign an imperfect deal, he told Reuters in a telephone interview.
The World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations, launched in 2001 in the Qatari capital to help poor countries prosper through world trade, have been bogged down for years as countries argue over agricultural and industrial barriers.
Davies, appointed trade and industry minister in President Jacob Zuma’s Cabinet last week, said the deal asked for too much from developing nations.
”I think we have reached an impasse in the process,” he said.
”To break the logjam we need to go back and address the fundamental issue of an imbalance in the underlying deal. It’s a complicated deal that has made huge concessions to the developed country needs.”
Davies said there were still fundamental disagreements on a number of issues.
A WTO ministerial meeting was expected to take place towards the end of the year.
Poorer countries want developed economies to reduce barriers to their agricultural markets while rich nations want big emerging countries, like South Africa, to open up their markets more to industrial goods.
Davies, the former deputy trade minister who has been closely linked to the talks, said moves by Washington to engage with other countries may reflect new momentum.
Sceptical
US trade chief Ron Kirk visited the WTO earlier this month and met key ambassadors and WTO director general Pascal Lamy to assess the state of the talks, raising hopes of a breakthrough.
But Davies said South Africa would not rush to conclude the round if that meant skipping over important issues, including the special safeguard mechanism and sectoral deals.
”The content of the agreement is as important as concluding it,” he said, referring to a proposal to drop ”modalities” and move straight to ”scheduling”.
”We are sceptical on that … outstanding issues have not been addressed. If we just go into scheduling and not modalities the process may end up being more drawn out.”
Modalities is WTO jargon for talks that aim to reach an outline deal on the formulas for cutting tariffs and subsidies, while scheduling is detailed bilateral negotiations on cutting individual tariffs.
Davies said the Doha proposals as they stood now did not offer much for South Africa, with very little gains on agricultural issues and only modest improvements on the industrial side.
A Doha ”mini-ministerial” last July collapsed without an agreement, the third year in a row that a high-profile trade meeting had failed to produce results.
Lamy decided against calling another meeting last December.
Regarding separate talks with the US, Davies said the previously envisaged free trade pact with the Southern African Customs Union — South Africa and neighbours Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana and Namibia — was off the table after a prolonged deadlock.
The parties would now rather look at a trade cooperation agreement.
He also said the government was still considering assisting South Africa’s struggling motor industry to help it cope with the global economic crisis and weak domestic sales.
”We need to finalise the measures that we can provide as support … we are not looking at bailouts but bridging finance loans.”
The car industry, an important source of employment and a key exporter, has asked the government for a bailout to get it through a global downturn that has knocked vehicle manufacturers around the world. — Reuters