Agence France Presse | August 29, 2003
African trade ministers insisted at talks here that subsidies and market access for developing countries must be high on the agenda at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) meeting in Mexico next month.
"There was general agreement that the concerns, which developing countries took to the WTO at Doha, remain valid and essential," Global Coalition for Africa (GCA) co-chairperson Frene Ginwala said.
The two-day GCA meeting, which ended on Friday, addressed a number of important issues for African countries ahead of the fifth WTO ministerial conference in Cancun.
Ministers of the 146-nation WTO are to meet in Cancun, Mexico, from September 10 to rescue a plan drafted in Doha to lower global trade barriers by next year, while developing countries are anxious not to be marginalised in the talks.
Agricultural subsidies in the prosperous West are one of the most contentious points of the Doha Round, and Africans, including the GCA participants, have lobbied US and European Union officials to create a more level playing field for their products.
"Participants noted with regret that insufficient progress had been made since the Doha meeting on issues of vital interest to Africa and the developing world as a whole," Ginwala added.
On the first day of the talks Thursday, Ginwala said subsidies not only distorted trade but also carried severe social costs, hurting African producers both on the international market and at home.
"In order to address such imbalances, it is crucial that the European Union and the United States cut subsidies and also that multilateral organisations reassess the impact of their policies and conditionality," she said.
The chairman of African trade ministers, Jayakrishna Cuttaree, urged the continent's governments not to be side-tracked from issues vital to Africa, as covered in the WTO's Doha Round.
"The Doha declaration is more important to Africa and it stands," Cuttaree said, adding: "We will not defuse pressure on Doha to new issues of discussion.
Participants in Nairobi also urged that decisions should be finalised on African products such as cotton and sugar, and agreed that the African Union (AU) should form one negotiating team for multilateral trade.
An AU heads of state summit in the Mozambican capital, Maputo, last month called on "WTO members to fulfil commitments undertaken in Doha, as contained in the mandate of agricultural negotiations... tariff reduction and with regard to the principle of special and differential treatment."
More than 70 trade ministers, parliamentarians and experts from Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Congo-Brazzaville, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda took part in two days of talks in Nairobi.Agence France Presse:
