NO DEAL IS BETTER THAN A BAD DEAL!

PNLC Declaration on the 6th WTO Ministerial Conference (MC6, Hong Kong)

 

         With less than a week before the 6th WTO Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong, the Doha Development Round negotiations, the WTO members are far from reaching an agreement in agriculture, non-agriculture market access (NAMA) and services. However, developed countries led by the United States (US) and the European Union (EU) are pressuring developing and least developed countries to agree to a bad deal or get blamed for the possible collapse of MC6.
         On 1 December 2005, WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy distributed a second draft Hong Kong Ministerial Text to WTO members. The draft text does not promote development for it does not address the urgent need for international trade rules that truly promote equitable and sustainable development and poverty reduction. The proposed deal will lead to the further impoverishment of poor countries like the Philippines.
         With the collapse of the talks in Seattle and Cancun, developing countries have been demanding redress for these imbalances, especially on implementation issues and demanded for a stronger special and differential treatment (SDT) measures and significant reforms in the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) to address structural inequities in agricultural trade.
         The four years of intense trade negotiations show the political and economic realities of our times. Agriculture, of paramount importance to developing countries, is the key bottleneck of the trade negotiations. In many developing and least developed countries, agriculture is the main source of income and livelihoods. About 25-70 percent of their people are dependent on agriculture while in developed countries, 2-5 percent only. Millions of subsistence and resource poor farmers and agricultural workers will be worse off if agricultural tariffs of the crops they grow will be cut significantly. As such, developing countries are demanding that their agricultural issues and concerns be addressed first before any discussions on NAMA and services. On the other hand, trade liberalization of manufactured goods and services are of vital importance to developed countries. Thus, they are maneuvering to shift the focus of the current trade negotiations from agriculture to NAMA and services.
         Ten years of WTO, of which four years are supposed to be a development round (Doha Development Agenda), have not yielded the promised benefits for all.
         For the Philippines and other developing countries, increased liberalization of trade in agricultural products has not benefited the Filipino people in general. It benefited only a few - the global agri-food transnational corporations (TNCs) and few national elites. These TNCs are driving the overproduction and export of food crops from a handful of producer countries. They are driving down prices and eliminating millions of jobs, fueling the massive migration of agricultural workers, peasants and family farmers from the countryside to already overcrowded cities or abroad, where they lack the most basic protection of their rights.
         The promised prosperity, to be brought about by trade liberalization, did not happen. Poverty and hunger continue to stalk the Philippines. About 46.4 percent of Filipinos subsist on $2 a day. Income inequality in the Philippines remains high, where the poorest 20 percent only get 5.4 percent of the income pie while the richest 20 percent get 52.3 percent of total income. The economic reforms and trade liberalization programs (structural adjustment programs to WTO) from the 1980s to 1990s contributed significantly to the dismal state of the country’s economy.
         The NAMA negotiations will have a similar effect in developing countries for industrial, fisheries and forestry products. Developing countries are being pressured to significantly reduce their tariffs on these goods. Fisheries and forests provide livelihoods and essential nutrition and medicines for millions of people across the world. The level of ambition (tariff reduction) being proposed under NAMA will seriously undermine the capacity of developing countries to implement home-grown industrialization and development plans. Developing countries are being pressured by the rich countries to make commitments on 100 percent of all tariff lines.On services, developing countries are being hard-pressed to liberalize fully the key public services like water, transport, and telecommunications. Liberalization of these and other service sectors could further erode the welfare of vulnerable groups. Liberalization does not have a good record in terms of employment: people either lose jobs or have insecure, lower quality and low-paid jobs. In the Philippines, 164 jobs are being lost every day because of WTO and other bad economic policies.
         The proposals to further liberalize agriculture, industrial production and services will lead to an immense new wave of unemployment and the worsening of existing jobs and livelihoods in developing countries and even in developed countries at the expense of mega profits of a few transnational corporations and their national business partners.
         Therefore, the Philippine Coalition for Food Sovereignty and Fair Trade (PNLC) call on the Philippine government, particularly its WTO trade negotiators:
  • No commitment to further trade liberalization agriculture, industrial production and services;
  • At the immediate term, fight for the:
     
    • Full exemption from tariff reductions for crops essential to food security, livelihood security and rural development
       
    • A special safeguard mechanism for developing countries
       
    • A clear and immediate end date (maximum: 2010) to eliminate all export subsidies
       
    • Substantial and quick cuts in trade-distorting domestic support
       
    • Discipline on the Green and Blue Box
         Above all, the Philippine government should come out with a Development Blueprint that leads to the achievement of sustained and equitable economic growth and poverty reduction. Towards this end, a comprehensive and coherent agriculture-industrial development plan should be formulated and be the basis for a Philippine trade policy.

         Philippine NGO Coalition on Food Sovereignty and Fair Trade
         Member-organizations:
         Philippine NGO Council for Food Security and Fair Trade (Kaisampalad)
         Management and Organizational Development for Empowerment (MODE)
         Food First Information and Action Network (FIAN)

         Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (PAHRA)
         Philippine Network of Rural Development Institute (PhilNet-RDI)

         Women’s Institute for Sustainable Economic Action (WISE ACT)
         Kasarian-Kalayaan, Inc. (Sarilaya)
         Philippine Human Rights Information Center (PhilRights)

         Task Force Detainees of the Philippines (TFDP)
         Partnership for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development Services (PARRDS)
         Alternate Forum for Research in Mindanao (AFRIM)
         Volunteers for Urban Renewal (VUR)

 

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