Developing countries to challenge new Doha draft

NEWS ANALYSIS

Already, four sessions of the new G-12 countries, including the US, the EU, India, Brazil, China, among others, have taken place over the last 10 days at the American mission here. But little progress has been made on the contentious issues in the latest non-agricultural market access (NAMA) draft text, senior officials told Business Standard.

Last week, an informal ministerial meeting in Paris failed to arrive at a procedural roadmap on when to finalise the modalities (parameters) in the Doha agriculture and industrial goods due to mounting differences over bigger commitments being sought from the developing countries in industrial goods.

World Trade Organisation (WTO) chief Pascal Lamy lobbied hard for getting a green signal to convene a ministerial meeting by the end of this month, said one senior official. "But the Paris meeting did not provide any comfort to Lamy because of sharp differences over the level of ambition arising from the latest drafts on agriculture and NAMA," the official said.

EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson told reporters in Paris that the NAMA talks in Geneva from Monday would be a "litmus test" for an outcome in modalities, suggesting that if there is no agreement the negotiations would fail.

While some developing countries, such as Brazil and South Africa, argue that the controversial chair for Doha NAMA negotiations, Ambassador Don Stephenson, had included some of their proposals, they reckon the text is flawed with regard to the ranges of cuts it had proposed in the Swiss formula.

But Brazil is prepared to accept a low coefficient of 19 among the NAMA-11 coalition of developing countries if it secures adequate flexibilities, which is not acceptable to other members such as India, Argentina, and South Africa.

The three countries, however, maintain that the draft text simply did not incorporate their proposals on the principle of less-than-full reciprocity. They suggested any number they agree from the chair's proposals of three ranges