SA scholars criss-cross WTO advantages and disadvantages: Issue Kathmandu Declaration
-by Niraj Aryal
Kathmandu: At a time when whole of the Nepalese Business Community and the Government are waiting for acceding to the membership in the world trade body-WTO, a South Asian regional seminar on WTO Negotiations on Trade and Services was organized, August 23-24, 2003, in Kathmandu by the New Delhi office of the FES, Fredrich Ebert Stiftung.
Still confused are the Government officials, business community and the economists of the country. What exactly Nepal is going to achieve and what we lose from the impending WTO membership is still unclear. Albeit the debate continues.
Nepali participant Dr. Deependra Kshetry from the Nepal Rastra Bank said “in each Ministerial conference of WTO discussions on trade in services takes place but the gravity always lies with the issues in which developed countries have interest”. He said, since 1998 after Nepal applied for the membership, it has faced a lot of problems. Answering 362 different questions asked by the WTO created troubles of which most of them dealt with trade policies. According to Dr. Kshetry, “ 31% of the questions concerned were related to TRIPS and 23% were service related, then WTO asked to open Sectors like Health, Banking etc for foreign investment but even after that they were not happy and proposed 120 different sectors for foreign investment” “ We kept on adding but even they were not happy” said Dr. Kshetry. He said “so it’s been a matter of give and take, the road to the WTO membership”.
Nepal is all set to get the WTO membership at the next WTO conference to be shortly held in Cancun and hence there is no need to weep but instead it’s time to embrace the membership and carry bold initiatives that allows benefits to this country.
The FES sponsored seminar had no participants from Bhutan and the Maldives.
Most of the SA participants accused the developed nations for their projectionist behavior. For example, Japan among the 7 countries who recently agreed on Nepal’s member ship on WTO with India, USA, European Union, New Zealand, Canada and Australia, has 500% of import tax on rice.
Speaking at the occasion of inauguration ceremony Dr.. Manfred Hack, Delhi Bureau Chief of the FES, said, “WTO issues are always dominated by the western countries” and stressed “ WTO has been a tool for the US and European Union to twist the arms of the smaller and least developed countries”. He further added “ world forums like WTO should always address the need of the poor people and should always adopt agendas for development of the poorer nations”. He said, “WTO is becoming a platform for political confrontation between different camps ” and added “protesting against the WTO being part of the system is always better than being out side and creating problems”. He hoped that seminars like these would help the suffering nations to make their views listen and the Kathmandu seminar was an endeavor of the FES to exchange ideas and opinions by the intellectuals/academics and the likes on the advantages and the disadvantages of the WTO membership.
One of the participant from India said that his country was leading the third world in WTO related issues. IN his opinion, other developing countries have not taken the membership issue as a mission. Other participant from India said there is no threat to the credibility of the WTO from specific agenda items but there is a threat from the sense of marginalisation and bypassing is being strongly felt across all developing countries. They also accused the USA and Europe for looking at their commercial interest and wrapping principals around.
Dr. Pravin Sinha, FES official in Delhi, said that developing countries accounted for the four-fifth of the WTO’s membership and that the Doha Development Agenda represented a vast challenge and required governments to devise appropriate negotiating strategies and to shape long-term policy goals. “This requires, technical assistance and consultation with stakeholders to identifying national priorities.
Ms. Urmila Goyal from the FES Central Office, Bonn, wished the Kathmandu seminar a grand success.
Dev Raj Dahal, Nepal office In-charge of the FES, said that for a country like Nepal, trade is not only adapting to the globalized world but also how the benefits of exchange are structured to uplift the people at the bottom of the society.
At the end of the two-day seminar, the SA participants issued a declaration called the Kathmandu Declaration which is as follows:
“Trade unionists, employers, NGOs, Government representatives, academicians and social activists met at Kathmandu on 23-24 August, 2003 at a South Asian Regional Seminar on WTO Negotiations on Trade and Services under the aegis of FES and adopted the following statement:
Since the last couple of decades, the South Asian region has been bearing the brunt of a relentless WTO led process of globalization, privatization and liberalization. This has resulted in closure and collapse of industries, mass retrenchment of workers, spiraling unemployment and worsening of employment conditions everywhere. Simultaneously, one is witness to a process of casualisation, contractualisation and complete loss of job security of workers. The insistence of MNCs on increased freedom to hire and fire workers as a condition of investment is worrisome. Under this dispensation the structure of national economies is being reversed. While the size and magnitude of organized sector is decreasing, informal sector with its ease of exploitation seems to be the preferred mode.
This pattern of corporate globalization with its naked pursuit of profit maximization and cost cutting drivers is setting an unprecedented scene of exploitation of workers. Discontent of workers is being witnessed in country after country. Small and medium scale industries with major concentration of workforce are faced with the prospects of extinction.
We wish to reiterate that this process by reversed and urgent correctives introduced. A thorough assessment of the impacts and a holistic review is the need of the hour. We urge that national governments in the South Asian region institutionalize a process of consultation with all the social partners before embracing any further integration”.