The group of least developed countries has reached almost a consensus to take a common stance at the WTO Ministerial Conference, which steps into negotiation stage on the so-called Bali package yesterday.
“The differences within the group have been resolved at the LDC trade ministers’ meeting on Tuesday,” Commerce Secretary Mahbub Ahmed, who is leading the Bangladesh delegation, told reporters on the sidelines of the conference.
Before starting the conference officials had expressed concern weather the LDCs would take a common stand amid protests by few members of the group.
“Lesotho and Nepal raised differences on few points. The trade ministers’ meeting helped reducing the gap,” said the delegation head, who represented Bangladesh at the trade ministers’ meeting.
In the earlier occasion, the LDCs generally held a mini-ministerial to decide their stance well ahead of the WTO ministerial council. But this time, they held the meeting just a day before the ministerial meeting stepping into the negotiation stage.
The secretary would present the country position at the plenary session today. He would propose a time bound measure for the LDCs to enlarge the duty-free and quota-free market access from what had agreed at the Hong Kong Ministerial back in 2005.
Now, Bangladesh would seek expansion of the facility from 97% of products and implement it by the year 2015.
“The Honk Kong declaration was not time bound no progress has been made since then as few countries were protesting it,” said an official of the Bangladesh delegation.
The official said the Bali package is made up of negotiation on three pillars agriculture, trade facilitation and development issues.
The development issues consists of duty-free and quota-free market access of LDC products to developed market, relaxation of rules of origin, services waiver and cotton issue are the main concerns of Bangladesh as also other LDCs.
Whether the negotiation on the Bali package is heading towards signing a deal, the commerce secretary said the negotiation would continue till the concluding session tomorrow afternoon. “It’s not possible to predict the outcome till the end of negotiation.
Officials, however, said there has been not much progress on the agriculture issue, particularly the food security issues with which the United States and India taking opposite stance. The US wants to allow government procurement of foods at 10% only for four years, but India want it permanently.
“Let’s see what happens during the sessions scheduled for today,” said senior official of the delegation. He said the deal hinges on what development takes place in the food security issue.