Associated Press | February 7, 2002 | BY: TOM MALITI; Associated Press Writer
NAIROBI, Kenya - Developing countries stand to earn at least three times more in exports than the international aid they currently receive if developed countries drop domestic agricultural subsidies, the World Trade Organization's top official said Thursday.
Mike Moore, the World Trade Organization's director-general, told a news conference in Nairobi that allowing developing countries to export agricultural goods to Western countries that currently subsidize their farmers was the quickest way to increase employment and reduce poverty in Africa.
"If we removed those agricultural subsidies, that would return maybe three to five times more than all the overseas development assistance put together. This would return eight times more than all the debt relief," Moore said. "So the (anti-globalization) protesters should be protesting about agricultural subsidies not just about debt relief." U.S. lawmakers will consider a proposal to impose a dlrs 275,000-per-farm cap on agriculture subsidies. But critics say the amendment, to be offered Thursday, threatens the future of a farm bill being debated in Congress.
The Bush administration has not taken a position on the measure, although officials have argued that existing programs unfairly benefit large farms and encourage the overproduction of crops that are already in surplus.
Moore was in Kenya for a two-day visit to follow-up on decisions made during a world trade ministers meeting in Doha, Qatar in November. He is discussing how developing countries can develop stronger negotiating teams ahead of a new round of global trade talks so that they can fight to make agricultural subsidies illegal under free-trade rules.
The WTO has set up a voluntary trust fund to help developing countries strengthen their negotiating teams and is holding a meeting of potential donors in the first week of March, hoping to raise dlrs 9 million for the fund. The United States has already pledged dlrs 1 million.
Moore said Western governments spend one billion dollars a day to subsidize local farmers, making food more expensive and that cheaper imports from developing countries would bring down prices and provide more variety.
Moore has already visited Ivory Coast and will go to Botswana and South Africa after Kenya. He has also met Organization of African Unity officials in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
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