There was hardly any progress in implementation of the decisions declared under the “Bali Package” one year ago, particularly for safeguarding interest of least developed countries (LDCs), trade analysts said in Dhaka yesterday.
They, however, see light at the end of the tunnel once LDCs takes initiatives to narrow down the differences within them and continues to negotiate with the world economies to yield positive results.
The trade experts were speaking at a dialogue on “Recapturing the Momentum in the Post-Bali Process of the WTO,” arranged by the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) at a city hotel.
Local and overseas trade experts took part in the discussion with CPD distinguished fellow Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya in the chair.
Briefing media on the outcome of the dialogue, Debapriya said agreements made in the ninth ministerial meeting in Bali, Indonesia one year ago found hardly any progress, particularly in the interest of LDCs.
He said, recently, a consensus was reached between USA and India on food security, which is expected to help move the Doha Development Round forward.
But most of the speakers said the world has changed a lot since the Doha Round, as new economies like India and China has emerged. “Moreover, no country alone can produce one product, it requires involvement of a lot of countries and the service sector also saw a lot of development,” he said
He said now many countries have initiated moves for multilateral agreement with limited scale avoiding WTO, which means multilateral trading system is important for the economic development.
“Considering this reality, it is time to implement Doha Development Round as far as we can. However, this development over the years has also created new scope that needs to be utlised,” he said.
What needs to be done for the LDCs is to take preparation for beginning negotiation with the world economies and to bring reform in the domestic policies, he said.
CPD executive director Professor Mustafizur Rahman in his keynote paper said after five years of impasse, the Bali package was able to infuse a new life into the stalled Doha Round, and in a way helped salvage the WTO as a negotiating forum and fulcrum of multilateral trade system.
The Bali package with its four pillars of Development and LDC issues, trade facilitation, agriculture and cotton – concerned a number of areas where LDCs had both offensive and defensive interests, he said.
It was expected that the work progamme agreed in Bali would be followed by subsequent negotiations in Geneva to arrive at solution that will advance LDC interests.
However, he said, regrettably one year after Bali, there is hardly anything to show for as regards the 10 decision-points adopted in Bali.
The post-Bali work on DF-QF has been progressing in Geneva without any meaningful engagement on the part of members. Only notable outcome was the adoption of Chile’s DF-QF scheme for LDCs, which grants DF-QF access for 99.5% of its tariff lines, according to the keynote paper.
On preferential rules of origin and services waiver, the paper said there is no message yet. However, after submission of the collective request, there has been no concrete progress. Indeed, no country has granted voluntary preference to the LDCs since the adaptation of waiver in 2011, it said.
Professor Rahman recommended that LDCs will need to take initiatives to narrow down the differences within the LDC group, need homework, need to articulate their demands and need to build coalition and partnerships that will matter in advancing LDC interests in post-Bali negotiations in Geneva during the run up to Ministerial Conference-10.
Director of Global Economics in the Global Governance Programme Bernard Hoekman presented a keynote paper on The Bali Trade Facilitation Agreement and Rule-making in the WTO Milestone, Mistake or Mirage.
He said from the perceptive of trade facilitation outcomes on the ground, it may not matter too much whether the TFA becomes part of WTO.
“Insofar as one takes the view that the primary value of the TFA is to provide a focal points at the country level for trade facilitation reforms, much of value of the TFA lies in the handwork of agreeing on a set of good practices and norms and the implementation mechanisms that the TFA calls for,” he said.
The weakness of TFA in terms of offering foreign export interests strong mechanisms to enforce its provisions and thus to make the TFA self-enforcing means other institutional agreements can and must be used to support implementation, including regional integration arrangements and concentrate action by multilateral development agencies, he said.
CPD Chairman Rehman Sobhan, Chair Professor Trade policy and WTO Research Programme Professor Anwarul Hoda, Chairman of Cordell Hull Institute, Washington Richard O Cunningham, Director of China Center for International Development, Nankai University, China Longyue Zhao, were the panel speakers, among others, at the dialogue.
