Dec 4, 1984
THIRD WORLD GROUP RULES OUT TRADE NEGOTIATIONS IN GOODS AND SERVICES.
GENEVA, NOVEMBER 30 (IFDA/CHAKRAVARTHI RAGHAVAN) -- Third World countries made clear Friday that the "agreed conclusions" on services at the annual session of the Contracting Parties (CPs) did not go beyond the Ministerial decision of 1982, and that they did not envisage any new round of trade negotiations embracing goods and services.-This Third World position was reiterated at a press conference Friday afternoon by Amb. S. P. Shukla of India, the coordinator of the group in GATT. Also present, and endorsing the same view were Kazimir Vidas of Yugoslavia, Paul Nogueira Batista of Brazil, Osvaldo Lopez Noguerol of Argentina, and Mahmoud Abdel-Bari Hamza of Egypt.- Earlier, Paul Lutyens of the European Economic Community said at a press conference that the understanding reached on services was "the beginning of the work of GATT in this field".- While the Community understood the concerns of the Third World in this field – even the EEC did not have enough experts knowing both services and GATT - it was important at a global level to develop a framework of principles, and afterwards may be regulations.- The Community Representative expressed satisfaction on the whole at the outcome of the meeting.- On the question of standstill and rollback, Lutyens said even at the 1982 GATT Ministerial meeting, the Community wanted to be "realistic" and hence had agreed to make "best efforts".- "To those who made no reservations then, we ask what have you been doing to fulfil your commitments", Lutyens asked, in what seemed to be an apparent reference to U.S. and Japan.- The Community also envisaged a step-by-step approach to the new round, with a high-level meeting in mid.-1985 for consultation and reflection", and perhaps launching of the preparatory process to a new round, if not launching it itself in 1986.- The GATT Director-General Arthur Dunkel suggested, at another press conferences, that there was "a certain convergence" of movement in the direction of new round of negotiations.- But the conditions, aims and objectives and rules, and whether it should be a new round or cycle of negotiations - all these would have to be settled through implementation of the work programme, and discussions in the GATT Council.- Both the Community and Japan had suggested a high-level official meeting next year to start the preparatory process, but much would depend on what happened over the next four or five months in the implementation of the work programme, Dunkel added.- At the press conference of the Third World group, both Shukla and Batista said that on the services issue the Third World had preserved its position, and the agreed conclusions and the two statements of the chairman of the session, which had been carefully drafted after hours of negotiations, did not go beyond the 1982 Ministerial declaration and its parameters.- Asked about the reported U.S. view that they had got what they had wanted on the services issue, and whether the Third World view was that it had won "a victory", Batista said the proposals of the U.S. and the Third World were in documents and so was the final agreed conclusion.- He would not try to characterise it as a "victory" for this or that side, for it was not a kind of zero-sum game. But the outcome was one that had preserved "the GATT as an institution, ad as a General Agreement on Tariff and Trade in Goods", Batista declared.- Asked why the Third World had "circumscribed carefully", the area of action of the secretariat, Shukla said it already had a heavy burden, and "we do not think they should be asked to do something which would compromise its integrity and land it into controversies" hence the statement by the chairman of the CPs that any additional tasks of the secretariat must be agreed to by all the CPs.- There were certain issues relating to services, covered by the Ministerial declaration, that were within the prerogative of the session of the Contracting Parties of GATT, and this had been maintained and preserved, Batista added.- Shukla said that at the conclusion of the session of the CPs, on behalf of the Third World group he had again made a statement, which had referred to and reiterated the group's stand in its joint statement to the CPs at the beginning of the session.- "As we have said before, we want to see first a genuine, not pro forma, implementation of the past commitments about standstill and rollback. If that is done, we could take the initiative in proposing specific trade negotiations in GATT - as different from a new round of trade negotiations - and confining it to trade in goods only".- Both, Batista and Shukla, made clear that while their countries in the light of further information and studies could always change their position, they could not envisage now any prospects of negotiations on trade in services being taken up or along with any trade negotiations in goods.- Even the Industrial countries did not seem to know enough about this sector, and so far only eight national studies had come in, and even they were deficient on the trade aspects of services. Switzerland, a country with considerable service activity, had not even submitted a study, Hamza underlined.- The talk about a new round of multilateral negotiations in GATT to be launched in 1986, were not a decision of the Contracting Parties' session, but merely a view of some Contracting Parties. The Third World countries had clearly expressed their position in their joint papers, twice this year, and they stood by it, the Third World diplomats said.- Batista insisted that on services individual Contracting Parties must first complete national studies, and exchange information among themselves, inter alia through international organisations like GATT.- This was to be reviewed by the annual session of the Contracting Parties in 1985.- Thereafter, the Contracting Parties, had to jointly decide whether any international joint action to regulate trade in services was feasible or desirable.- If they decided affirmatively, they would have to decide where it should take place - whether in GATT or in any other international organisation or a special UN conference convened for that purpose - and under what rules a new system for trade in services should be devised.- "For us there are very serious problems in accepting that the provisions of the General Agreement on Trade in Goods could be applied to the trade in services. As countries we are not prepared to accept it", Batista said.- "This is a whole new area about which not enough is known, even in the Industrial countries. It involves not merely trade but development and other aspects. We must know what it is all about before we can agree to negotiate", Shukla said.- "Each one of us have to define our objectives, and do it individually, not merely in trade but in development aspects of the services. But we cannot hold up other things in GATT, until we are able to agree on this collectively", Shukla added.- Both, Batista and Shukla, noted that there were so many unfinished problems of trade in goods in GATT, and these should be addressed and solved.- "We do not want to give the excuse for some countries, who are seeking to launch negotiations on trade in services, to use it as an excuse not to carry out their obligations in trade in goods".-