Small States Trade Experts Meeting
Trade experts met at the Commonwealth Secretariat in London from 31 January to 4 February, 2005 to discuss small states' trade issues. They examined:
- progress of the Small Economies Work Programme (SEWP) and preparations for the upcoming Ministerial Meeting in Hong Kong;
- SVEs definition and contradiction in paragraph 35 of the Doha Declaration; and
- Land-Locked Developing Countries' Proposal.
"There is a need to arrest and reverse the marginalisation of small states, which account for 32 members of the Commonwealth. It is important to advance the Small Economies Work Programme at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in order to improve the development prospects of these economies by enabling them to enjoy a fuller and more beneficial participation in the multilateral trading system", said Dr Coomaraswamy, Director of Economic Affairs, speaking to delegates from small states and regional organisations, which included the Caribbean Community, the Pacific Islands Forum and the Indian Ocean Commission.
"The rationale for convening this meeting is to draw on your collective wisdom to assist small economies to address this imbalance. Only three proposals dealing specifically with small economies have so far been made in the negotiating context. These relate to services, financial services and fisheries subsidies. If small economies are to secure tangible gains from the Doha Development Agenda, they must identify their needs and formulate proposals for negotiation. Otherwise, they could well receive nothing and have to pay through further market opening and loss of advantages in accessing certain foreign markets."
Dr Coomaraswamy went on to say that the Doha Development Agenda can work towards strengthening and formulating new rules that will further liberalise trade in goods and services. More extensive areas of economic policy management are also likely to be subjected to WTO disciplines and rules. The submissions under consideration in the negotiations at the present time, said Dr Coomaraswamy, are mainly from developed and more advanced developing countries while proposals from small economies were seriously under-represented.
Two working groups reviewed the Small Economies' Proposals. The experts then re-convened to provide a broad overview of the issues discussed, present revised proposals and agree on the process for tabling them to the WTO.
A dialogue also took place with European Commission Representatives on WTO-related Small States issues.