Fuente : World Bank
http://www.worldbank.org

Top UN Adviser: Africa Should Refuse New Trade Talks Unless Subsidies Are Cut

/noticias.info/ The United Nations' top poverty advisor said Monday that African countries should refuse to begin negotiations on a new round of world trade talks if rich nations do not cut farm subsidies and tariffs, as they agreed, reports The Associated Press.

Jeffrey Sachs, a top economic adviser to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, said that existing tariffs meant cocoa-producing countries such as Ghana were unable to export chocolate to Europe and had to remain exporters of cocoa, used in making chocolate. European tariffs on raw material are lower than tariffs on final product. He said that it was a similar case with cotton, an industry in which, for example, the United States spends $3 billion in annual subsidies to 26,000 cotton farmers. "These farmers are averaging something like $140,000 per farmer of subsidies per year. They are growing subsidies, they are not growing cotton," Sachs told journalists.

In March, the WTO upheld a ruling condemning government help for cotton producers in the United States, saying that many US programs included illegal export subsidies or domestic payments that were higher than the commerce body's rules allow. The US government is proposing to repeal a federal cotton subsidy in an effort to comply with the WTO ruling. The legislation would eliminate the government's cotton-marketing program, called Step-2, which makes payments to exporters and domestic mill users to compensate them for buying higher-priced US cotton. The United States has already altered three export credit guarantee programs to comply with the ruling. The alterations were intended to satisfy the WTO's finding against the guarantees, which help US growers sell commodities by making financing available to foreign customers.

Meetings have been taking place this year in different countries to resolve difference between negotiators before the World Trade Organization summit in December in Hong Kong. Trade officials have warned, however, that huge efforts are needed to reach agreements on tariff and agricultural-subsidy reductions before then.

In related news, Agence France Presse reports that EU agriculture commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel expressed optimism Monday she would win support for a controversial sugar industry reform, as thousands of sugar producers hit the streets of Brussels. “I don't see any significant majority against,” she told reporters after it was presented to EU farm ministers for the first time. "There are more votes for, than against this proposal today."

The reforms became necessary after the WTO declared current EU policies, which date back to 1968, illegal based on a complaint from Australia, Brazil and Thailand. At the moment, the EU offers a guaranteed price for sugar that is paid for, in effect, by consumers, with Brussels buying from producers at about three times the average world market price. The European Commission's plan is to cut the guaranteed price by 39 percent over two years from 2007 and offer a voluntary compensation scheme for producers forced out of business by the price cut. It hopes to get the go ahead for its plans by November.

The news comes as a source told Dow Jones Monday that ambitious plans to reform the EU’s sugar regime could be blocked because more countries object. The source, who is close to the council of ministers meeting Monday, told the newswires agency that member countries' positions may have changed enough to block the proposal's approval. At the moment, Italy, Spain, Poland, Greece, Portugal, Finland and Ireland are "strongly opposed" to the reform proposal. Latvia, Lithuania, Belgium and Austria are "moderately opposed," the source added. Only Denmark, Sweden and Estonia are happy with the proposal as it stands. The current EU sugar regime expires June 30 next year, when a new plan must be in place.

Reuters further notes that US and African trade experts and businessmen will try to get more out of a deal which aims to help African nations trade their way out of poverty during a meeting in Senegal's capital which starts on Monday. Few concrete decisions are expected from the 3-day meeting in Dakar, but US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is due to drop in on the last day to show top-level commitment to boosting trade under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). With 37 countries eligible, AGOA covers some 6,000 products from nuts in Malawi to wickerwork in Madagascar but experts say much more could be done to ensure African countries benefit more from the deal. The meeting in Dakar is the first since wealthy nations pledged billions of dollars in new aid for Africa, and Washington is keen to show it cares.

However, Amadou Lamine Ba, Senegal's ambassador to the United States, said that there would be few concrete deals. "The meeting will produce conclusions -- not agreements, but conclusions," he said. The discussions will also help inform negotiations in Washington over future extensions and adjustments to the AGOA law and will give both sides a chance to lobby support ahead of key world trade talks in Hong Kong in December. One of the most contentious areas is likely to be textiles, with African industries incubated under AGOA now battered by cheap imports from Asia after a 50-year old WTO textile quota system expired at the end of 2004.

The Times of Zambia meanwhile writes that after successfully campaigning for the cancellation of their huge debts, least developed countries should now focus their efforts on fighting trade imbalances on the international market. This is the only way poor countries will generate the much-needed revenue to develop all priority sectors and be able to halve the number of people living below the poverty-datum line by 2015. Otherwise, even with all their huge debt stocks condemned to the dustbins of history, attaining the millennium development goals (MDGs) will still remain a far-fetched dream for most African countries if the current foreign trade impediments are not sorted out, argues the African daily. notas_de_prensa_archivo