The least developed countries should look for other alternatives to the World Trade Organisation forum to facilitate their trade as the WTO is failing to ensure the interests of LDCs, said speakers at a seminar in Dhaka on Sunday organised by the International Chamber of Commerce-Bangladesh. The WTO is passing through a crisis and it may lose its relevance at it is yet to implement trade facilitation protocol agreed in the Bali Package, they said in the two-day conference of ‘ICC Bangladesh on Global Economic Recovery: Asian Perspective at Sonargaon Hotel.
The WTO Bali Package is a trade agreement resulting from the Ninth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation in Bali, Indonesia in December 3-7, 2013. The accord includes provisions for lowering import tariffs and agricultural subsidies, with the intention of making it easier for developing countries to trade with the developed world in global markets.
Centre for Policy Dialogue executive director Mustafizur Rahman said that LDCs needed to look for alternatives to the WTO.
‘The LDCs are not getting proper attention in the WTO. They need to focus more on multilateral trade issues,’ he said.
‘There are issues which are affecting LDCs. The duty-free access and zero-tariff issues are also not being effective,’ Mustafiz said.
‘The WTO should become a part of solutions, not part of problems,’ he added.
Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association former president Anwar-ul-Alam Chowdhury said Bangladesh was not getting proper treatment by the WTO.
‘We have given access of more than 8,000 products to the US market but those are not our main exporting products. With such facilitation we can hardly go ahead,’ he said.
Chowdhury said Bangladesh garments should get duty-free access to the US market.
Fung Global Institute director Barbara Meynert said the WTO was passing through a grim situation.
‘When we headed for Bali we were all hopeful and that hope turned into joy for moments. But now the hope is gone,’ she said.
Meynert said the WTO could become irrelevant, ‘Such organisations don’t die but it can lose its relevance,’ she said.
‘There is distrust in its negotiation process. The WTO has surely played a key role in dispute resolutions, but it is not enough. It needs to be a platform where people can negotiate. If there is mistrust, then it will take long to bring people back to negotiation table.’
‘The developing or least developed countries are not willing to accept the dominance of the developed countries in the WTO,’ said Bangladesh International Arbitration Centre chief executive Toufiq Ali.
He said that in the Bali round the WTO shifted from its principle of agreement by all.
‘The WTO used to came up with something which is agreed by all the members. But in the Bali round it deviated from this principle in the trade facilitation issues,’ Toufiq said.
The multilateral trade rules are designed only for the developed countries; so in trade negotiations, the interests of developed countries are taken care of, he said.
-With New Age input
