African countries are drawing up a unified position this week to try to pry open the markets of developed countries ahead of a World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial conference in Geneva on Nov. 30. Delegates to an African trade ministers conference that opened in Cairo on Tuesday said continuing delays on a new global trade deal was crippling African development, especially in the wake of the global economic crisis. Africa needs an early, balanced and fast conclusion of this round. So it will be an appeal to the major players to come to the table, because this time around, it s not Africa who is delaying the process, said S.B. Naresh Servansing, a delegate from Mauritius. African nations are seeking broader access to developed markets of their agricultural produce in particular, especially cotton, which is grown widely across the continent. They also complain that subsidies to producers in rich countries, particularly to US cotton growers, are distorting world trade to the detriment of producers in poorer countries. Servansing, chief negotiator for the 79-member group of African, Caribbean and Pacific countries at the WTO, said talks should be all inclusive in a way that allows African and other vulnerable countries put their concerns on the table. Despite an intensive work program agreed last month, WTO talks have not achieved enough to reach a core deal in implementing the Doha negotiations, now in their eighth year. Hisham Badr, African Coordinator for WTO matters in Geneva, said on the meeting sidelines that the failure to enact the Doha trade pact and the global financial crisis had caused private investment to fall by 40 percent in 2008 and African losses from exports of $251 billion in 2009. -Reuters
