The delegates participating in the 31st Cairns Group Ministerial Meeting vowed to complete the ongoing process of Doha Development Round by the end of this year as the representatives from US, European Union and Japan stressed the need for completion of Doha process as early as possible.
Pakistan WTO ambassador at Geneva Dr Manzoor Ahmad along with Federal Secretary for Food, Agriculture and Livestock, Ismael Qureshi expressed the hope that the process of Doha talks would be completed by the end of the year as all the world leaders- US President Bush, Brazilian President Lula, President Pervez Musharraf, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Indian Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh were committed and keen to see the process in final shape.
He said that the representatives of the developed world at the ministerial meeting admitted that 'whatever they have offered so far (in terms of domestic subsidies and market access) is not enough'. He said that Canadian delegate apprised the meeting of his country's reservations especially regarding what he called the sensitive items.
About the address of WTO Director General and the delegates of the ministerial meeting, Dr Manzoor Ahmad said that the WTO chief stressed the need of merging bilateral and multilateral talks at a central point ie through Geneva process. He said that a focused and centralised approach could help expedite the talks process significantly.
"If Cairns Group develops consensus, it can accelerate the process of reaching an agreement at WTO level," Dr Manzoor Ahmad said while referring to the talk given by DG WTO.He said that Japan had agreed to bring down the tariff on all the items especially mangoes and rice for which it wanted tariff capping. He further said that Trade Promotion Authority of USA needed to be renewed to ensure effective deliberations between the agriculture exporting countries and the United States.
The Federal Minister for Food, Agriculture and Livestock, Sikander Hayat Bosan, held a meeting with Phill Goff, Minister for Trade, Defence and Disarmament, New Zealand during the Cairns Ministerial meeting and both the ministers appreciated the resurgence in bilateral relations between the two countries.
President of Pakistan visited New Zealand in 2004 and since then several initiatives have been taken to harness the potential in Livestock sector in Pakistan.
Technical experts from New Zealand are also working in Pakistan to promote the dairy sector. The Agriculture Minister informed the New Zealand's Minister that livestock sector was 50 percent of the agriculture GDP and the contribution of agriculture sector in the whole economy was 23 percent.
He was also informed about the investment opportunities in the livestock and dairy sector in Pakistan and the Livestock and Dairy Development Board, which is a private sector led non-profit company registered with the Security Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP).
He agreed with the huge potential for Dairy sector, Agriculture Minister also informed him that currently he wished to expand production as the domestic demand was growing at 10 percent annually.
The meeting discussed proposals for further collaboration between the two countries, including Equivalence Agreement to facilitate trade and will provide a framework for co-operation on SPS matters and mutual recognition of certificates.
About the technical assistance and skill development, a Pakistan mission will visit New Zealand to examine the requirements to manage livestock farms in Pakistan on a professional basis and train Pakistan's farm managers.
Moreover, excellence centres would be set up to help livestock farmers where training could also be provided on the basis of best practices.
Earlier, addressing the participating of 31st Cairns Group Ministerial meeting the WTO Director General, Pascal Lamy said that the Group's membership from developed and developing agriculture exporting countries accounts for 25 percent of the world's agricultural exports, which makes its role crucial at this particular stage of Doha Round.
While the negotiations can continue, the expiry of the US' Trade Promotion Authority would make it difficult for the US' trading partners to reveal their final cards. It is crucial, therefore, TPA be renewed and that the members of WTO capture the existing political momentum for the achievement of "full modalities", he added.
The bilateral discussions and multilateral negotiations are now running in parallel in the context of the Doha Round. The bilateral discussions are taking place in various formats.
The WTO membership recognises that a narrowing of the gap between key players would be an important contribution towards the overall success of the Round. However, the membership also recognises that while convergence between key players can be helpful in igniting broader multilateral convergence, it cannot be a pre-requisite, he maintained.
Recently, several WTO members have expressed concern over the slowness of the bilateral discussions taking place between the so-called "majors," and have cautioned that the bilateral process must not detract from the multilateral front.
"Therefore, it is my firm conviction that it is now crucial to see more serious engagement from members in the multilateral negotiations in Geneva, under the Chairmanship of Ambassador Crawford Falconer, while recognising of course the usefulness of continued bilateral activity. In Geneva, members must move to text-based negotiations as soon as possible, with the Chairs of acting as catalysts in the process.
The two tracks - bilateral and multilateral - must be made to pressure each other. I count on your support. He said the industrial goods, services, trade facilitation, and the entire rules-making component of the Doha Round (whether on subsidies, intellectual property, or the environment) are all equally vital to the success of this undertaking, and must not be postponed till the final hour. Many of these areas still require both technical work and political compromise.
"In agriculture, we are close to reaching the architecture of a final deal and we have achieved a sufficient level of clarity in each of the three pillars of the negotiations to know where a landing zone may be.
The technical work remains to be done in some areas, particularly on export competition; and certain political decisions will need to be taken on the overall level of ambition across all three pillars of the negotiation.
Many of the issues are "tough nuts to crack," and even within this set of issues, some are more sensitive than others for various players.
To help the WTO progress on these issues, the Cairns group could make an extremely valuable contribution by generating a consensus within the group on how best to tackle them. He said that the group had yet to take an offensive position, or to at least play a bridging role, on the challenging issue of State-Trading Enterprises. These are few examples.
He was of the view that unfortunately, any material progress is impossible in the absence of a compromise on these very tough issues. These difficult issues cannot be swept under the rug, they are part of the negotiations, and require a solution, On market access, many members have expressed the concern that developed and developing country flexibility in the Doha Round could negate the market access value of the agricultural package.
It is absolutely vital, therefore, that a compromise be reached as quickly as possible on the contours of these flexibility's, he maintained. Addressing the meeting, Federal Minister for Food, Agriculture and Livestock, Sikandar Hayat Khan Bosan said that in recent years, Pakistan had sharply reduced its agriculture tariffs, eliminated many of its non-tariff barriers, and significantly curtailed market interventions by federal and provincial governments.
Pakistan's agriculture trade performance has not yet reflected the benefits of these changes. This is due in part because of highly protected international markets and in part to a considerable number of domestic marketing constraints. At the same time, Pakistan is experiencing rapidly growing domestic food demand limiting its ability to take advantage of trade opportunities, he maintained.
Pakistan agricultural exporters face a series of obstacles in their integration process into global markets. Access for many commodities is restricted through tariff rate quotas-some 1300 such quotas are in place.
Seventy percent of the current tariff rate quotas cover products that Pakistan is interested in exporting. Pakistan welcomes the proposal from most Cairns members in seeking substantial increases in these quotas. Pakistan maintains the view that they should eventually be eliminated.