RP panel confident WTO meet in HK will be productive

Philippine negotiators to the forthcoming Sixth WorldTrade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong from Dec. 13 to 18 are optimistic that some progress will be achieved towards a balanced trade agreement.

Ambassador Manuel A.J. Teehankee, the Philippines’ permanent representative to the WTO in Geneva, Switzerland, expressed optimism about a forward movement in the Hong Kong WTO negotiation compared to the last ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico which was deemed as a failure because of the widely divergent positions of developed and developing countries.

Teehankee, though, is cautious about predicting a "successful" outcome of the Hong Kong meeting. Instead, he is more convinced of a "forward" movement in negotiations that would allow for an eventual agreement.

Teehankee’s optimism about a "forward" movement stems from the results of continuing negotiations in Geneva which has seen a lessening of the gap between the positions of developed and developing countries on one of the key issues which is domestic subsidies.

In the Cancun meeting, the developing countries were asking the European Commission and the United States to remove their trade distorting agricultural subsidies, offering a three-tier 80-75-70 percents cuts, which the developing countries would not agree to. However, in the continuing Geneva negotiations, Teehankee reported, the EC has now softened and agreed to a 70 percent cut, just 10 percent shy of the developing countries’ 80 percent.

The US, on the other hand, is less forthcoming, offering only up to a 53 percent cut and conditional on the EC raising its cut to 75 percent.

Apart from securing market access to developing countries, the US is also keen on gaining more foothold in the European market, thus the reason for its insistence on higher EC domestic support cuts.

There has also been agreement in Geneva, Teehankee reported, to set aside most of the Singapore Ministerial Conference (SMC) issues which the Philippines and other developing countries were opposed to.

The SMC issues involved investment liberalization, competitiveness policy, trade facilitation and government procurement.

During the Hong Kong meeting, only trade facilitation would be tackled in the negotiations, Teehankee said.

The Hong Kong meeting, Teehankee said, would continue to tackle the five core issues of agriculture, non-agriculture market access (NAMA), services, trade facilitation and development.

Four other issues would also be discussed in the Hong Kong meeting and these are dispute settlement, TRIPS on wines and spirits), rules and environment.