The Hindu : Roadblocks on way to Cancun

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 19, 2003

Business

Business

Roadblocks on way to Cancun

By Sushma Ramachandran

NEW DELHI FEB. 18 . Agriculture and TRIPs-related public health issues cast a long shadow over the Tokyo mini-ministerial conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), indicating it is going to be a long haul to achieve a successful ministerial conference at Cancun by the end of the year.

Giving his assessment of the initial round of negotiations, the Commerce and Law Minister, Arun Jaitley, who led the Indian delegation at Tokyo said `the road to Cancun is riddled with roadblocks and potholes. It is for the developed countries to win trust back so that people in developing countries can see some tangible benefits from a multilateral forum.''

Mr. Jaitley, who took a strong stand on agricultural issues, pointed out that 650 million farmers are dependent on the agriculture sector in India and any tinkering with tariffs will have a direct impact on these people. "We cannot allow social unrest'', he said.

Taking a cue from the former Commerce Minister, Murasoli Maran, who took a hard line at the last WTO ministerial at Doha, he urged developed countries to focus on implementation aspects, resolution of TRIPs-related public health issues and special and differential treatment issues. Speaking to presspersons shortly after his return from the three-day conference attended by 23 countries, he said India stressed that developed countries must bring down their huge agriculture subsidies and allow developing countries to calibrate their own tariffs.

Official sources, however, pointed out that there was a big divide between the stances of the European Union and the U.S. with both accusing the other of allowing huge farm subsidies to mount. The difference being that the U.S. was in favour of market access being allowed to pry open the lucrative E.U. market while the Cairns group of countries — all food exporters — backed the U.S. approach. The Stuart Harbinson document which formed the basis of negotiations was decried by all segments at the conference with developing countries such as India keen to ensure that tariff levels are not brought down while ensuring that subsidies of the North are reduced.

These sources felt the ''flavour'' of the Tokyo mini-ministerial was the three issues of agriculture, TRIPs-related health issues and aspects of the road to Cancun. On agriculture, hard bargaining will be needed to reach some kind of consensus with countries such as India rejecting the ten-year graded reduction in tariffs proposed at Tokyo. On TRIPs-related public health issues, the modalities for implementing the decisions taken at Doha were discussed but a consensus again eluded the conference. The issue of how to determine when non-manufacturing countries can issue compulsory licences could not be reached largely due to concerns of developed countries about the ability of countries such as India and Brazil to produce low cost drugs. Brazil offered a formula suggesting the World Health Organisation be allowed to decide on manufacturing capability of countries seeking such compulsory licensing facilities, but India did not feel this took the negotiations much further down the road.

Sources here feel the U.S. does not have much room to manoeuvre on the issue of public health and TRIPs especially since the compulsory licensing can be resorted to in case of diseases and epidemics. It must be recalled that for dealing with anthrax, the U.S. had to resort to licensing of companies in India to provide the antibiotics which are no longer produced in their own country.

Regarding the contentious "Singapore issues'', the sources pointed out that India was able to relegate these to the last leg of the mini-ministerial conference. These issues, about which India raised objections even at the Doha conference, included trade facilitation, transparency in government procurement, investment and competition policy. Taking recourse to the decision taken at Doha at the instance of Mr. Maran that `explicit' consensus is needed to discuss these issues, the Indian delegation is believed to have stressed that none of these needed to be taken up at a multilateral trade fora. This stance was apparently supported by many African and other developing countries with even the U.S. appearing to be on some common ground with India. The E.U., which has been the biggest votary of the Singapore issues, however, is likely to continue to try and drum up support in the run-up to the Cancun conference.

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