The ninth WTO Ministerial Council meeting opened here on Tuesday with a call upon the ministers and delegates to show “flexibility, and sometime compromise” to reach a deal on the Bali package and avert a tragedy for the world trade institution.
The package is to reach a deal mainly on four issues – trade facilitation particularly through relaxing the rules of orgin condition, meaningful duty-free and quota-free (DFQF) market access, waiver in services sector and the cotton issue.
The call emerged as the global trade leaders apprehended a possible setback in the negotiation despite the deal texts were claimed to have made a significant progress, if not finalised.
“The deal is possible. It’s in your (ministers) hands,” Director General of World Trade Organisation Roberto Azevedo told the inaugural session of the four-day conference.
“Members (WTO) want a deal, now is the time to deliver. It’s political cause,” he said, calling for political willingness of the member states as the conference steps into the negotiation session today. “The deal is really close, but we did not quite get to the finish line.”
Indonesian Minister of Trade Gita Wirjawan, who is the council chairman, raised a concern that goes with the apprehension of the WTO director general. “If it (the deal) fails, it’ll be a tragedy for the country’s, for the institution(WTO),” he said.
Inaugurating the conference, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono called upon the members to show strong political will with more flexibility to reach a deal for the good of the WTO, for the good of our economies and for the good of our peoples around the world.
“For twelve of those years, we have been negotiating under the Doha Development Agenda, and we have yet able to complete it,” he said, hoping a success of the negotiation this year.
“I am confident by working the extra miles, we will be able to agree on a Bali package that will pave the way for the conclusion of the Doha Development Agenda forward.
Roberto also spoke at a press conference following the inauguarl session, insisting nothing of the issues on the table today is too technical or difficult resolve.
He said what halted the progress of the issues brought in here from Geneva is not the lack of efforts, but it is the very specific political issue. “Ministers can make those.”
The WTO chief also insisted that if the Bali conference could be made successful, every nations will get some wins. He warned that if it fails, there would be a long list of losers.
Replying to a question, he said demonstration is a manifestation of welcome news. The demonstrators are often misunderstood. “What we are doing here will not be worse than what we may lose if the deal is not done.”
“People over profit! Junk WTO!” were a couple of slogans that around 150 students and youth under the banner of the Indonesian People’s Alliance were chanting when they demonstarted at Ngurah Rai Sport Centre about 15km from the conference venu of Nusa Dua area.
Various youth organizations affiliated with the Front Mahasiswa Nasional (FMN), the leading youth organisation in Indonesia, gathered at Renon and marched towards the US Consulate calling for the upholding of people’s interests over corporate greed.
VOICE and Supro, a NGO network of 600 hundred grassroots organisations in Bangladesh, were the part of this People’s Alliance.
A small group of activists also chanted slogans on the lobbies of the conference venue on Tuesday.
Another protest brought together around 1,000 farmers, trade unions, students, women and youth from more than 30 countries at Renon Square in Bali.
Replying to another question about demonstration on farmers’ fate, Roberto said: “If we don’t have the Bali Package, the farmers will be the losers not the winners.” He said the deal on the table to adopt about the export competition on agriculture products (export subsidy) would bode well for the farmers.
About food security, he said some countries are on the verge of breaching their WTO commitment. Under this circumstance, if you don’t have the deal in Bali everything will be abolished, he warned.
In response to a question about special and differential treatment for the LDCs, the WTO chief said they have been agreed on the language under bracket (not agreed upon), but not yet finalised. “I don’t think that is not possible to solve.”
About the prospect of the negotiation starts today, he said: “if one of the element does not come through, everything will fail.” He added that the problems are of very localised nature.
On the sidelines of the inaugural function, an official of Bangladesh delegation told Dhaka Tribune the prospect of the deal would become vulnerable if only a single issue could not reach a consensus. India is strongly against the agriculture subsidy issue while the United States was promoting it.
