Agence France Presse | By NADEEM QADIR | May 30, 2003
Officials from 38 of the world's least-developed countries (LDCs) will meet in Bangladesh at the weekend to hammer out a common strategy ahead of the WTO ministerial meeting in Mexico.
Of the 38 countries participating in the three-day meeting in Dhaka, which opens Saturday, 23 will be represented by their ministers making it the largest such gathering in 10 years, officials said.
Bangladeshi Prime Minister Khaleda Zia will address the conference on the closing day when it will issue a "Dhaka Declaration." The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is holding a ministerial conference on September 10-14 in the Mexican resort of Cancun to follow up a similar meeting in November 2001 in the Qatari capital Doha.
"It is a very, very difficult job to integrate the LDCs in the multilateral trading system as different countries are at different stages of development," said Bangladeshi Commerce Minister Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury.
"Many proposals are there and being discussed and Bangladesh, as the coordinator, will be trying to take the agenda forward."
"The market is the most conspicuous issue along with capacity building and anti-dumping matters that will have to be hammered out if the LDCs want an edge at the Cancun meeting," a senior commerce ministry official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
"The other issue is the inclusion of countries like Cambodia, Nepal and Bhutan in the WTO."
He said market-related issues such as duty and quota free access of goods from the LDCs to the developing world would be high on the agenda.
"We need market access more than anything else as the more the trade, the lesser the dependence on foreign aid ... the motto now is trade, not aid," he said.
"Bangladesh's garment industry flourished just because of quota free access to the United States and Europe ... it helped empower women as well as bringing in huge foreign exchange."
The garment industry in Bangladesh mainly employs women.
Cash-strapped Bangladesh has felt the pinch of shrinking foreign aid, which accounts for around half of its national budget.
Capacity building is aimed at setting up institutions to train people in the LCDS in order to check a "braindrain", the official said.
"This is essential as governments lose hard-earned foreign exchange by sending people abroad for training or study, but on return many quit for a better position elsewhere," he said.
The official said the LDCs would also push for free labour movement to ensure more employment opportunities as well as helping countries earn foreign exchange.
"We have both skilled and unskilled manpower and we want to reduce unemployment in the LDCs," he said.
"The LDCs are looking to develop their industrial sector and socio-economic conditions and just like in a society where the rich come to the aid of the poor, the developed countries also have to look at the whole trading arrangement with such a view," he said.
The United Nations designates 49 countries as least-developed, most of them in Africa. The criteria include having gross domestic product of less than 900 dollars per capita, weak health and educational assets, and high economic vulnerability.Agence France Presse:
