The Ninth Ministerial Conference of the WTO will be held in Bali,
Indonesia, on 2nd December 2013. In most neighbouring countries,
high-level brainstorming has already started as to what position a
country might take at this important meeting aimed at strengthening
rules-based multilateral trading system. Such in-country meetings have
the participation of business community, academia, non-governmental
development organisations and media. One expects that the Government of
Pakistan will also evolve a consensus at national level before
participation at this meeting.
Pakistan's emphasis in its official position should be carefully
formulated. As much as Pakistan has always supported the multilateral
trade paradigm, equally important is to hold development dimension in
all areas of negotiations as central. There have been complaints
regarding transparency in the process of WTO negotiations. Such
grievances need to be addressed if one is to uphold the sanctity of this
important platform. The issue of transparency is particularly important
in the case of negotiations on plurilateral services. Several rounds of
such negotiations have actually taken place behind closed doors where
many WTO members were not present. This is against the Ministerial
Declarations of Doha and Hong Kong.
After the global financial crisis of 2007-08 several WTO member
countries resorted to trade restrictive measures in turn giving rebirth
to protectionism. These countries had hoped that such measures would
save their domestic output and in turn help in restoring pre-crisis
export levels. However, it is not surprising now to see that even in
2012 (several years after the crisis) the global trade growth saw a
decline. It may be noted that most South Asian countries including
Pakistan refrained from such measures. In the interest of global trade,
value addition and in particular export-oriented jobs in developing
countries, other WTO member countries should also do away with any such
remnants of the crisis period.
Some key negotiations in WTO which are of utmost importance to
the multilateral trade agenda include food security, climate change
induced threats to agricultural production and trade, food aid,
livelihoods of poorest of poor farmers, and effective market access on
products which are of export interest to development economies. All WTO
members should refrain from export subsidies specific to agricultural
products. The Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration has already set 2013 as
the deadline for eliminating such export subsidies. This is also in line
with G33 proposal for early agreement to address food security issues.
In the services sector negotiations, Pakistan must stress upon
market access in all categories of services sectors in particular Mode 4
(in which Pakistan has considerable comparative advantage). The
country's services sector has over 50 percent share in GDP. A large
qualified labour force is dedicated to this sector. It is equally
important that Pakistan should press on delinking Mode 4 from Mode 3.
The other pending issues under the services trade that all developing
countries wish to see addressed include, prohibitive visa regimes by
developed countries, lack of mutual recognition of professional
qualifications, removal of burdensome licensing requirements, and
restrictive requirement of professional association's membership.
Trade facilitation is another important area where Pakistan
should pronounce its official position. Like other developing countries
we understand that any facilitation that aims to simplify and
standardise the supply chain can significantly reduce transactions
costs. However the local capacity to implement and manage the trade
facilitation agenda is missing. Pakistan has struggled for around a
decade to make National Trade Corridor (NTC) a success. However, owing
to sheer lack of co-ordination in the government machinery none of the
objectives under the NTC project have been achieved. Countries such as
Pakistan need technical assistance in this area from advanced trading
partners.
A point similar to the above is the monitoring of technology
transfer. The Doha Ministerial meeting had agreed on a mechanism of
monitoring; however since 2003 the progress has been very slow. Pakistan
along with other developing countries in particular LDCs should stress
upon stronger monitoring mechanisms for technology transfer to the
developing economies.
It is also important for us to give a common Saarc position at
WTO. In order to widen Saarc's influence at WTO, early accession of
Afghanistan and Bhutan to the WTO should be emphasised. This demand of
SAARC countries will be in line with the WTO's Istanbul Plan of Action.
For Saarc to become a vibrant collective voice at WTO, there should be
extensive meetings among South Asian countries at all levels of
government machinery including political representatives, ministerial
position and civil service. The frequency of these meetings has been
very low; thereby hampering the progress towards a common regional
vision on trade.
Finally, it is important to note that countries can only benefit
from a multilateral trading regime if they are able to import cheaper
intermediate goods for production and produce value added exports. For
this to happen the urgent reform of national institutions that promote
market competition, spur innovation in agriculture and industry, and
encourage a supportive services sector is needed. The regulatory bodies
that are entrusted with the task of checking anti-competitive practices
must be allowed maximum autonomy without government intervention.
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