Poor Nations press Rich States on Fair Trade at UNCTAD XI by Patricia Kowsmann UN Wire 6:09pm 15th Jun, 2004   June 14, 2004    SAO PAULO — The U.N. Conference on Trade and Development opened its 11th ministerial meeting here this morning with officials from developing countries urging rich nations to cut subsidies to their producers and vowing to find ways to promote national development while increasing trade liberalization.    Unlike World Trade Organization meetings, in which developed countries are heavily represented, UNCTAD meetings are mostly attended by developing nations, which often accuse rich countries of calling for an increase in trade liberalization while protecting their own markets with high subsidies.    Today's UNCTAD opening was no different.  U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, along with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, complained of high subsidies in developed countries and trade barriers that stop poor nations from participating in a democratic world trade market.    "Policies ought not to give with one hand and take away with the other," Annan said.   "Rules designed to liberate ought not to create new barriers.   Countries which press others to liberalize trade should be willing to do the same themselves.   If they don't, we politely call it lack of coherence, but we could just as accurately call it discrimination."    This year, UNCTAD member countries are expected to announce what has been called here the biggest breakthrough in trade talks among poor nations — the expansion of the 1989 General System of Trade Preferences that reduces mutual trade barriers among the 44 developing countries that have ratified it.    Today, Lula said the Group of 77 developing countries, plus China, are eligible to join the initiative."We [developing nations] know that development will not be given to us by developed countries," Lula said.   "We have to take new steps to ensure advancement, and the GSTP is one of them."    Annan added that if developing nations agree to reduce average tariffs by 50 percent, they would generate an additional $15.5 billion in trade.   That money, he said, would be used to boost development in poor countries. "We must … take advantage of the opportunities offered by South-South trade cooperation and integration," Annan said.  "The new round of multilateral talks that will be launched here to expand the GSTP among developing countries holds great promise."    However, he added, "this is not an alternative, but a complement to the multilateral liberalization process.   What we need now is a successful conclusion to the Doha negotiations," he said, referring to the latest round of WTO-sponsored world trade talks.    This UNCTAD meeting marks the organization's 40th anniversary, a date that is shared by the G-77, which was created during UNCTAD's first session in 1964.  The sessions are held every four years.    Over the weekend, G-77 and China warned that globalization and trade liberalization should not underscore national development policies, saying in a statement to mark its anniversary that "the process of globalization and liberalization has produced uneven benefits among countries."    "The international disciplines and obligations are also increasingly encompassing rules that frame development policy choices of developing countries. These developments, which have had negative economic and social effects, underscore the importance of ensuring policy space for developing countries to advance national development objectives based on their development, financial and trade needs.   The liberalization of trade policy regimes should not intrude on national policy space," the group said.    While emphasizing protection of poor countries' markets against widespread trade liberalization, the G-77 also called on developed countries to cut subsidies, especially to cotton producers.    The G-77 ministers "urge those developed countries to expeditiously complete, as far as cotton is concerned, the elimination of both export subsidies and production-related domestic support," the statement said.
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