BBC Monitoring International Reports | August 28, 2003
Together with Chile, China, India, South Africa and several other counties, Argentina has stated its definitive rejection of the trade-liberalization proposals by the General Council of the WTO, claiming that they "serve only the interests of developed nations", particularly in the agricultural sector, and "contain ambiguities" on matters of investment and competition.
The Argentine position was disclosed by International Trade Relations Secretary Martin Redrado, during the meeting of the General Council of the WTO, the organization's senior body, held yesterday in Geneva.
This meeting (the last to be held before the forthcoming ministerial conference in the Mexican resort of Cancun from 10 to 14 September) was called to analyse and debate the draft agreement prepared by the president of the Council, on the basis of the various proposals for negotiation which have arisen in recent weeks.
According to Redrado "the proposal by the president of the council is asymmetrical and sets a double standard, as it meets the interests of developed nations, in particular as regards negotiations on the agricultural sector, while offering ambiguities in other sectors and in new trade matters, such as investment and competition".
Bloc
Argentina has formed a bloc with other members of the WTO such as Brazil, India, Australia, New Zealand and the rest of Latin America, to join in expressing dissatisfaction with the document submitted and encourage the president of the General Council to go on working until 10 September to incorporate the "legitimate interests" of developing countries in the document which is to be submitted for debate to the ministers at Cancun.
The Argentine delegation confirmed that this round of multilateral trade talks must reverse the bias against developing countries which exists within the current multilateral trade system, and must spread the benefits of the system so that they especially benefit countries such as Argentina.
According to the Argentine official "since the Uruguay Round (the last round of WTO trade talks before the current series, known as the Development Round) we have found ourselves in an unbalanced position, under which the developing countries have not been able to benefit from the trade liberalization process".
Redrado also pointed out that "the disparity with which tariff reductions were applied, giving preference to lower duties on industrial goods, excluding agricultural goods from the system, has led to great imbalances".
Source: Ambito Financiero web site, Buenos Aires, in Spanish 27 Aug 03BBC Monitoring International Reports:
