India along with several developing countries said on Wednesday, that the draft compromise text on Doha market-opening for industrials is “unbalanced” and undermined all the developmental principles of the Doha mandate, trade diplomats said.
“The draft text makes developing countries pay first in the NAMA [non-agricultural market access] negotiations and requires them to make severe cuts in the their industrial tariffs,” said the broad coalition of developing countries called the NAMA 11 that includes South Africa, India, Brazil, Argentina and several others.
Unfortunate
Issuing a statement, Indian ambassador Ujal Singh Bhatia said “the draft text on agriculture reflected the negotiating realities while the draft text on NAMA was simply unbalanced and flawed on several counts.”
The chair Ambassador Don Stephenson said all members must have to pay by opening their markets for industrial goods, suggesting a range of coefficients between 19 and 23 for developing countries, and eight and nine for industrialized countries in the Swiss formula to cut industrial tariffs.
Consequently, the developing countries will have to reduce their tariffs by more than 60 per cent while the industrialized countries will cut their tariffs by much smaller proportion. Besides, the chair also reduced the flexibilities for developing countries in undertaking the tariff cuts. The NAMA 11 coalition said the draft text on market-opening for industrials “prejudges the outcome of the NAMA negotiations before members have had an opportunity to negotiate these outcomes in the multilateral process.”
Besides, the developing countries are angry for changing the principle of the Doha Round that “Agriculture should lead the ambition of the Doha Round, with developing countries making the greatest reforms in their trade distorting policies.”
Meanwhile, India cautiously praised the agriculture draft on Tuesday telling the chair Ambassador Crawford Falconer “you have captured well the progress, or the lack of it, on all aspects of the agriculture negotiations, with the attendant nuances. You have shown a mirror to us collectively, warts and all, and asked us to reflect on how and where we want to take the negotiations.”
The United States, the European Union, Brazil, India, Australia, Japan, Switzerland, the G-20 developing country farm coalition, the G-33 coalition seeking enhanced flexibilities, the African Group and several others praised the chair for putting a text that took on board their concerns in varying degrees, suggesting further refinement.