Niveen Wahish speaks to Hisham Badr, Egypt's permanent representative at the UN and World Trade Organisation (WTO), about where Africa stands on the current challenges facing the Doha Development Agenda Egypt, in its capacity as coordinator of the African Group on World Trade Organisation (WTO) matters, hosted this week an informal meeting of African trade ministers in preparation for the seventh WTO Regular Ministerial Conference that will be held in Geneva from 30 November until 2 December 2009. Cairo's meeting, which ends today, brought together African ministers and ministers and representatives from major trading partners (China, Mexico, Brazil, India, US, EU, Japan), and Pascal Lamy, director- general of the WTO, in addition to representatives of some international organisations. What is the importance of the Cairo ministerial conference? Egypt's initiative in hosting the meeting gains more importance in light of the challenges currently facing the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) -- not only the lack of progress in negotiations since the mini-ministerial meeting held in July 2008 to try to reach a deal in agriculture, and non-agriculture market access (NAMA), but the slow change we are starting to see in the parameters of the negotiations. The balance seems to be shifting to the benefit of developed countries. In agriculture, NAMA and services, there are demands from developed countries to protect sensitive products from tariff reductions, and demands to limit developing countries from doing the same. There are attempts to change the developmental mandate of the Doha Round, and to change the negotiating process, dealing with issues of greater concern to developed countries first. What are the points where Egypt's interests differ from those of other African countries? There is always a common dominator between developing countries on the issues under negotiation. All African countries agree on the core issues, because we face more or less similar challenges. We all need the developed countries to further open their markets to us and to recognise that this trade round is about development. Therefore, improving the terms of trade for African nations is indispensable. There are some differences on issues that may be considered marginal. This is why the African countries are unified in the negotiations, and Egypt's position is in line with African positions in the majority of cases. What issues are expected to be the toughest in terms of getting everyone's approval? And on what issues is there consensus? This round has been going on for eight years. The toughest issue is for the major trading powers to muster the political will to close the deal on its developmental components. There is a consensus among the group on the flexibilities that should be granted to developing countries, whether in protecting products that are special and sensitive to them, or the flexibilities that should be granted to developing nations when implementing commitments in agriculture, NAMA, services, and trade facilitation. There is also an urgent need to eliminate the massive subsidies of cotton imposed by the developed countries and that are crippling cotton producers all over Africa. There is a need to intensify consultations within the African group to reach a unified position on what level of compromises, if any, are needed to reach the deal, in addition to some issues in the aforementioned negotiating tracks, and in the field of trade in environmental goods and services. On which issues do you expect to see the toughest resistance from developed countries? The developing and developed countries are at odds with regards to many issues, amongst the most controversial are the special safeguard mechanism (SSM) in agriculture, which is a mechanism that developing countries would use to increase their tariffs when there is an import surge of a certain product. The developed countries want to limit the flexibility of using it. Also, some developed countries insist on having select developing countries open their markets in certain sectors that are of importance to developed countries, while the mandate of the round makes this voluntarily in nature. Do you believe that ending the Doha Round by 2010 is doable? Egypt is frustrated by the undue delay in closing the deal or entering endgame negotiations. This is a sentiment shared by African countries whose interests are hampered by this delay. In spite of political signals emanating from the G8's last summit in L'Aquila, the Delhi informal mini- ministerial meeting last September, and the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, that provided renewed impetus to an ambitious and balanced conclusion of the Doha Round, the lynchpin is a lack of will to "walk the talk", and to translate these signals into flexibilities in negotiating positions. To make 2010 doable, much more effort and political will is required on the part of some developed countries. What do you think of the position of the US, particularly in relation to labour and the environment? Is it suitable for the developing world? There is an impression that the US should be more intensively engaged in the negotiations process despite its other domestic priorities. Moreover, many in the WTO have questioned to what extent massive stimulus packages and bailout plans are consistent with fair trade, especially in light of the fact that African countries can't afford similar packages. This has been accentuated by protectionist trends that we have been witnessing worldwide. This is curtailing our existing limited margin of manoeuvre in achieving our goals, and comes at the expense of the developmental aspects of the Doha Round. This requires more engagement and vigilance from African countries. Labour issues are not on the trade agenda. As regards environmental issues, there are many challenges ahead in how to define and deal with such issues, broadly and in the current negotiations.
