By Brian Kenety
BRUSSELS, May 2 (IPS) - The 'Quad Group' of countries - the European Union (EU), the United States, Canada and Japan - are expected to announce at a meeting of the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) ruling body May 3 that they are ready to dismantle duties and quotas on 99 percent of imports from the world's 48 least-developed countries (LDCs).
The idea for such a "confidence-building" package, proposed by the EU last year and designed to entice poor countries into accepting a new round of global trade talks, was met with sharp criticism last month by LDCs, who said it didn't go far enough in granting them market access.
At an Apr. 10 informal meeting of the WTO General Council, most developing countries reportedly agreed that the Quad Group proposals could not be a basis for negotiations or for confidence-building measures.
Bangladesh - which often speaks for LDCs at the WTO - described the Quad Group initiative as "confidence-shattering," with various WTO members describing it as "meaningless" and "underwhelming," according to Bridges, a weekly trade digest.
The EU last year promised to give free treatment to "essentially all products" by 2005 and the other Quad Group members have, in the months since, pledged to "improve" the package. The plan was first spelt out by EU Commissioner for trade, Pascal Lamy, on the eve of the WTO ministerial conference in Seattle last November.
In addition to duty-free market access, the EU is also proposing the establishment of a programme for focused and effective trade-related technical assistance in support of capacity building for all developing countries.
However, as the one percent of total imports that will still be subject to trade barriers include "sensitive" products such as sugar and bananas in the case of the EU, and textiles in the case of the United States and Canada, the package may be in for another lukewarm reception.
WTO Director-General Mike Moore said in a speech on Apr. 13 before the National Press Club in Washington that consensus was beginning to form around "a host of issues that may not have garnered many headlines but which are of great importance."
These issues, he said, include "better market access for the Least Developed Countries in the developed world, greater funding for technical assistance and training, (and) closer co-operation among development agencies in bringing the LDCs in from the sidelines" of world trade.
Moore noted that with official development assistance contracting, it was vital that the LDCs turn to trade as a means of accumulating hard currency earnings, "but sadly, this is not happening."
"I know that leaders in many of the world's mighty and modest nations are working to remedy this situation ... I hope very much that in the coming weeks, I will be able to announce a package of market access opening, increased technical assistance and better co-ordination and coherence between the WTO and the key development institutions like the World Bank and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on building capacity in the Least Developed Countries," said Moore.
In other forums that week, he expressed his strong disappointment with the Quad Group's initial plan and failure to commit funding for WTO technical assistance and training programmes for LDCs, and said he would not lobby LDCs to accept the package.
In 1980, the LDCs accounted for 0.8 percent of world trade. By 1997, the total trade of the world's 48 poorest countries had fallen to less than 0.5 percent. By contrast, the Quad Group of countries accounts for more than 50 percent of world trade.
Two weeks after the anti-WTO street protests of the so-called "Battle of Seattle," the EU and the United States agreed at a summit in Washington to take forward a preferential market access initiative for least developed WTO members, first with their Quad partners.
In a joint statement issued Dec. 17, they said that WTO members needed to take "full account of the lessons of Seattle" and the EU and United States were "committed to maximising the benefits developing countries gain from being in the WTO."
They pledged to work towards instituting a set of measures that would: provide better opportunities for wider participation by all members (including developing countries) in the decision-making processes of the WTO; offer greater transparency (both within the organisation and vis-a-vis the outside world); and improve public access, including through broader access to WTO documents and enhanced consultation procedures with civil society.
But trade barriers on "sensitive" products for the Quad Group, and often of great importance to LDCs, remain.
Of the 48 LDCs, 33 are in sub-Saharan Africa, where 600 million people live or survive on one US dollar a day.
The United States currently offers duty free treatment to LDCs on three-quarters of the products listed in the US tariff schedule, under initiatives such as the Generalised System of Preferences.
Under a tentative accord reached by the US Congress last month on the Africa/Caribbean Basin Initiative bill, Washington could grant more than 70 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean and Central America greater duty-free access to the US market.
Administration officials say a final decision could be reached this week.:
