Commonwealth Small States Discuss Strategies Ahead Of WTO Meeting
10 February 2005
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| Trade Experts Group of Commonwealth Small States meeting at Marlborough House, London, UK, 31 January 2005. |
The five-day meeting was organised by the Commonwealth Secretariat at the request of the intergovernmental organisations of Commonwealth small states, including the Indian Ocean Commission, the Pacific Islands Forum and the Caribbean Community. The event was opened by Dr Indrajit Coomaraswamy, Director of the Secretariat's Economic Affairs Division, and chaired by Assad Bhuglah, Director of Trade Policy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Regional Co-operation, Mauritius.
During their discussions, the trade experts reviewed and refined the existing proposals on small economies and prepared a strategy to work on these proposals in the lead-up to the 6th WTO Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong in December 2005.
The proposals focused on market access issues, fisheries subsidies disciplines, the WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services and other systemic issues. In discussing these proposals, the trade experts agreed to advance their interests and concerns using a two-track approach. First, by continuing work under paragraph 35 of the Doha Ministerial Declaration, and then by submitting specific proposals to the relevant WTO negotiating groups.
Paragraph 35 of the Doha Declaration mandates a work programme to examine issues relating to the trade of small economies, the objective of which is to frame responses to the trade-related issues identified for the fuller integration of small, vulnerable economies into the multilateral trading system without creating a sub-category of WTO members.
The trade experts also discussed the contradiction inherent in paragraph 35 of the Doha Ministerial Declaration and the definition of 'small vulnerable economies'.
Mr Bhuglah said: "We would like the Hong Kong WTO Ministerial Declaration to reflect the interests and concerns of small economies. It would be good for the trade ministers of small economies to meet before the Hong Kong ministerial conference to adopt a common position."
He also stated that many small economies have inherent disadvantages that severely constrain their potential to benefit from the globalisation of markets under currently agreed trade rules. To be able to integrate, these countries need to have flexibilities built into these trade rules which recognise the specific concerns and problems of small states.
CNIS - the Commonwealth News and Information Service Issue 221 9 February 2005
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