'Fair trade; not just free trade'
27 May 2009
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has commended the Department of Trade and Industry for opposing the current Doha texts on agriculture and industrial goods.
The Doha Development Round is the current trade-negotiation round of the World Trade Organisation, which started in November 2001 in Doha, Qatar with the aim of lowering trade barriers around the world.
Negotiations stalled in 2008 over a divide on major issues such as agriculture, industrial tariffs and non-tariff barriers, services and trade remedies.
The most significant differences were between developed nations led by the European Union, the United States and Japan, on the one hand, and the major developing countries, represented mainly by India, Brazil, China and South Africa, on the other.
"Studies on the benefits of the post-Doha round indicate that developing countries will get little from liberalisation of trade and reduction of tariffs as proposed in the current Doha texts on agriculture and industrial goods," the trade union federation's spokesman, Patrick Craven, said in a statement on Tuesday.
He said the department would ensure that South Africa did not rush to agree to an "imperfect Doha deal".
He said the promised benefits from the 1994 Uruguay round of negotiations had not been felt by workers and the poor in developing countries, including South Africa.
Some of the major concerns about the current Doha round were that the reduction in tariffs was biased in favour of developed countries, as developing countries with higher tariffs would have to reduce their tariffs more.
Cosatu said there should be no commitment to complete the Doha round unless all implementation issues that had prevented developing countries from benefiting from the Uruguay talks were resolved to the satisfaction of developing countries.
"The current world trade system is so imbalanced that liberalisation does not provide the claimed benefits of free market and free trade."
He said in light of the current economic crisis, South Africa should reject the current text on agriculture and industrial goods and not offset any gains in these sectors with commitments to open, deregulate and privatise the services sector under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (Gats).
The union federation said South Africa should reverse its Gats commitments on the liberalisation and deregulation of the financial sector.
Craven said SA should also not sign off on any bilateral agreements, as this might undermine its position at the World Trade Organisation and worsen the economic crisis.
Sapa
