May 11, 1985

SOUTH-SOUTH: TRADE MINISTERS TO MEET IN NEW DELHI JULY 25-26-

GENEVA, MAY 9 (IFDA/CHAKRAVARTHI RAGHAVAN)— The meeting of Trade Ministers from the Group of 77 countries will meet in New Delhi on July 25 and 26, with the main aim of providing a political push to increased south-south trade through the Global System of Trade Preferences (GSTP) among themselves.-

Announcing this in an informal talk with newsmen here, the Indian permanent representative, Muchkund Dubey, and the Indian Ambassador to GATT, Mr. Shrirang P. Shukla, said that the idea of the New Delhi meeting and preparations for it had been under way for some months, but the dates had just been decided and invitations were in process of being sent out this week.-

Some 70 Third World countries had so far signified their intention to participate in the GSTP negotiations. The 70 out of the 124 members of the Group of 77 comprised the major trading countries of the Third World.-

About 29 percent of the exports of Third World countries in 1982 were to other Third World countries, according to UNCTAD data.-

Intra-Third World trade had seen the fastest growth rates in the 70's, but suffered a setback over the last couple of years, because of the debt crisis and the adjustment programmes enforced on them by the International Monetary Fund.-

Apart from the invitations to the 70 countries who have notified their decision to participate in the GSTP negotiations, Trade Ministers from other Group of 77 member-countries had also been invited to join the New Delhi meeting, Dubey said.-

The Ministerial meeting, to be hosted by India, would be preceded by a meeting of senior officials from July 22 to 24.-

Dubey said that while the centre piece of the New Delhi meetings would be the GSTP, and aimed at providing a political impetus to the negotiations, the gathering of Trade Ministers from sovereign countries would be free to discuss any other issue they wanted.-

They might hence decide also to review the present world trading policies and the international trading system, Dubey said in response to questions.-

The GSTP, he underlined, was one of the most important planks of "Economic Cooperation among Developing Countries" (ECDC), and part of the Arusha programme for collective self-reliance and the Caracas programme of action.-

The Group of 77 Foreign Ministers in 1982 had formally issued declaration launching the negotiations and setting up a negotiating committee of the participating countries, and had set end of 1985 as the target date for negotiating and setting up the first phase of the GSTP, to be followed by further stages of negotiations.-

However, the whole concept was new and much ground-work had to be done. The Geneva representatives of the participating countries, he noted, had been working on this for the last two years or so, tackling the various problems involved.-

Some of the ground rules for exchange of concessions had been settled, while a few others remained to be tackled in some particulars.-

The remaining issues, on which too some draft papers had been readied, included the issues of rules of origin, special treatment for the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), safeguards, and extension of concessions to new members, etc.-

The mechanisms for exchange of concessions - on a bilateral, plurilateral and multilateral basis and for actual negotiations had also been settled.-

Already, in accordance with the time-table, about 10-15 participants, had given a tentative indicative list of the products on which they would seek or give extensions.-

The GSTP would cover trade in all kinds of goods - commodities in their raw and processed forms, manufactures and semi-manufactures.-

There had been a feeling for quite some time, among the participating countries in Geneva, that while officials were tackling technical problems, the whole process needed a fresh impetus, and that a Ministerial meeting should be convened for that purpose.-

In response to these feelings, and after consultations, the government of India had now agreed to convene and host such a meeting.-

While the agenda would finally have to be decided by the meeting, it would include a review of the course of negotiations so far towards the GSTP, review of the ground rules and modalities, a revised time-table for the negotiations, approaches to the negotiations (across-the-board tariff cuts, product-by-product, or sectoral or combination of all three), and other relevant issues.-

"But since Trade Ministers from so many developing countries are meeting together, they would be free to review the present world trading policies and the international trading system", Dubey added.-

The New Delhi meeting and the GSTP programme was not intended as a counter to the push for a new round of trade negotiations in GATT, being mooted by some of the Industrial countries, Dubey underlined.-

The moves for south-south trade negotiations had been on the anvil for quite some time, and much ground work had been done at meetings under UNCTAD auspices, while the idea of a new round had been broached in GATT only for the last year or two, and even then not formally.-

And while the issues of participation in the ECDC activities of the Group of 77, and the issues of financing, had created some differences, the Industrial countries had all supported, in UNCTAD and elsewhere, the concept of ECDC and for enhancing south-south trade, Dubey underlined.-

There was thus no real conflict.-

The idea of convening the meeting in New Delhi after the technical preparations had been completed at official level, had arisen in 1984 itself, but because of the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and subsequent events, it had to be put off.-

But after the general elections, and the formation of the new government, the issue had been again taken up, and the decision to convene the meeting had been taken.-

Originally July seven had been thought of as a suitable date for the meeting, but in view of meetings in Africa, leading to the OAU summit in the third week of July, the New Delhi meeting had now been set for July 25-26.-

Shukla underlined that GSTP was not a counter to the general agreement, and in fact was envisaged and sanctioned by the 1979 framework agreement of GATT.-

And while the traditional areas of trade liberalisation in GATT were in the areas of tariffs and non-tariffs, the GSTP would have the innovative area of direct trade measures - such as long-term contracts, role and cooperation of state trading organisations and other kinds of cooperation.-

Asked about a possible clash between the New Delhi meeting and proposals for a high level meeting of the GATT Contracting Parties in July (being suggested by the U.S. and some other Industrial countries), Shukla said the issue was still to come before GATT.-

While the U.S. Treasury Secretary, in the Washington meeting of the Development Committee, had mentioned July 23 as a possible date for the GATT meeting, the issue was yet to be broached in GATT itself.-

The dates for the New Delhi meeting had been fiyed even then.-

When the issue of the high level meeting in GATT came up, both the issues of substance (as to the purpose of the meeting), as its timing to suit the conveniences of CPs would have to be agreed upon.-