Poor nations cry shame at WTO talks

DEVELOPING nations cranked up pressure on the rich to open their long-protected markets as world trade talks floundered yesterday, while the US and Europe blamed each other for the deadlock.

As World Trade Organisation (WTO) nations haggled in Hong Kong, over 1,000 anti-globalisation protestors marched peacefully, but they promised a more aggressive demonstration today.

“Today our actions are peaceful ... tomorrow we will show a difference phase of this struggle to smash the WTO,” said Park Min-ung, general secretary of the Korean Peasants League, which represents South Korea’s four million farmers.

Inside the convention centre, the World Bank added its voice to the indignation expressed by the least-developed countries over their treatment at the meeting.

“In the three days the meetings have taken so far, the rich countries have transferred more than $2 billion to their farmers in various forms of support,” World Bank Vice President Danny Leipziger said in a statement.

“In the same period, the 300 million poorest people in Africa have earned less than $1bn between them.”

Poor nations slammed Washington and Tokyo for balking at a deal that would allow their exports in free of duties and quotas, saying that after years of prescribing liberalisation for others it was time they “swallowed their own medicine.”

The United States also came under fire over the $4bn (e3.3bn) a year in subsidies enjoyed by its cotton farmers, and won little respite when it announced its willingness to offer duty-free access for cotton from impoverished West African states.

“They export cotton. Why would they import any of our cotton? What they need to do is halt the subsidies,” said Francois Traore, president of the African Cotton Producers Association.

The EU, for its part, took flak for a banana import system that Latin American growers say favours former European colonies and for its refusal to lower import tariffs for farm goods from developing countries.

The Hong Kong meeting was initially intended to approve a draft trade treaty that would free up business in farm and industrial goods and services, and lift millions out of poverty.

That plan was abandoned because of differences between rich and poor - particularly the EU’s stand on market access for farm goods from developing countries without further concessions from them on industrial goods and services.

Saddled with that impasse, the WTO had hoped to come away from Hong Kong with at least a duty-free and quota-free deal for the 49 poorest nations and their 700 million people.

But the United States has been reluctant to allow poor exporters free access to sensitive areas such as textiles, sugar and cotton, and Japan does not want to open up its rice market.