The Disaster that is the HK Ministerial Declaration

2005-12-20 00:00:00

"All the developing world has got is a hollow end date for subsidies in
exchange for a bad deal in the rest of agriculture, a bad deal in industry
and a bad deal in services," Dr Walden Bello, Focus on the Global South.

Agriculture:

Export subsidies: The text that claims to eliminate them is a bluff.
2013 date will result in zero cuts to export support. 55 billion Euros per
year will continue under AOA rules and in fact the EU has the provision to
increase subsidies.

Domestic support: continuation of dumping. There are no disciplines on
trade distorting domestic support. This will allow for dumping to continue
unabated.

Cotton: calls for elimination of export subsidies by 2006, but does not
deal with domestic subsidies under which the majority of trade distorting
supports are reported. In addition, US should have eliminated all
distorting subsidies by September 2005 according to the cotton case Brazil
had won. They are postponing a decision on something they should have
already done.

Services:

The process of arriving at this draft was inherently undemocratic.
Brackets that indicated disagreements around Annex C were removed in a
green room process. The text changes the flexible nature of the GATS and
forces developing countries into plurilateral, sectoral and government
procurement negotiations. It will compromise the ability of developing
countries to regulate foreign services corporations. GATS clauses of
progressive liberalisation will ensure that international companies will be
given the same regulatory treatment as domestic ones.

NAMA:

The non-linear Swiss formula will result in the loss of policy space and
flexibility to protect their industries. Several African Ministers have
said that this approach would lead them down the pathway to de-
industrialisation. Very high co-efficients will be required to protect
local industries and many developing countries will not have the capacity
to negotiate in their interests. The EU has offered the developing world a
coefficient of 15 (i.e. highest tariffs are 15% in industrial products). To
maintain their policy space, developing countries will require a
coefficient of about 290.

LDC's:

97% of US tariff lines will be duty free and 3% will be at levels that the
US determines. This translates into 300 lines. All the important products
of interest to LDC's such as textiles will be excluded.

AID AND TRADE:

A huge proportion of this will be provided as loans. The sequencing is
wrong because countries will be forced to liberalise before they have built
up their supply capacity needed to engage in trade. It is a bribe for trade
liberalisation because the aid is conditional on implementing the
liberalisation.

Focus on the Global South www.focusweb.org

The Ministerial Declaration text can be found at
http://www.tradeobservatory.org/library.cfm?refid=78081