World Trade Organisation Ministerial

World Trade Organisation Ministerial

The WTO Ministerial meeting that was supposed to mark the near completion of the 'Doha trade round' takes place from 13-18 December in Hong Kong. The TUC will be represented by the General Secretary who will be a member of the UK government delegation.

Many experts see the root cause of the impasse as France's refusal to countenance further reform of the European Common Agricultural Policy. Without this Europe cannot come close to matching campaigners and developing countries demands in the agricultural sector for an end to export distorting subsidies greater market access for developing countries produce and protection for designated products that developing countries need to ensure food security and achieve economic growth.

Without movement on agriculture it is unlikely that any progress will be achieved in the other key areas of negotiation, Non Agricultural Market Access (mainly trade in manufactured products) and GATS (trade in services). Having said this it is clear that some developed countries including the EU are still seeking to push developing countries to open up their markets under the GATS agreement in a way which is completely at odds with the promise that talks on services would be entirely voluntary.

The long-term aim of the international trade union movement is to move the focus of trade talks onto the impact that agreements are having on employment and working conditions internationally. At present the issue of linking international labour standards to WTO agreements is not even on the agenda for Hong Kong however there are increasing signs that our arguments about the massively damaging impact of trade liberalisation that leads to economic growth concentrated in the hands of a small minority are beginning to he heard. Throughout the ministerial the international trade union movement will be turning the media spotlight onto the impact of WTO trade rules on workers, with a series of reports and briefings including ones on the situation of women workers in export processing zones and the conditions faced by workers in mainland China.

The full draft text for the ministerial can be found at

http://www.tradeobservatory.org/library.cfm?refid=77635

The summary of the Global Unions position is at http://www.ituc-csi.org/?displaydocument.asp?Index=991223003&Language=EN