Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 8 • Number 13 • 8th April 2004
Informal Consultations On Singapore Issues Continuing
On Tuesday, 6 April, a ‘core group’ of developing countries met with WTO Deputy Director General Rufus Yerxa, who is conducting informal discussions on trade facilitation. Trade facilitation is one of the controversial Singapore issues, which also include investment, competition policy and transparency in government procurement.
At a General Council (GC) meeting in February this year, no chairs were elected for the working groups on the Singapore issues. Instead, the GC Chair made a statement confirming that informal exploratory talks on the issues would continue at the GC level with the assistance of the WTO Secretary-General, without prejudice to the outcome of the talks or the opinion of any Member (see BRIDGES Weekly, 12 February 2004).
At the informal consultations on 6 April, the ‘core group’ countries expressed their willingness to discuss trade facilitation, but only for the purpose of clarification and not in negotiating mode. The group wanted the clarification to extend to substantive modalities for negotiations, but reiterated that negotiations must be based on ‘explicit consensus’. The group members expressed their desire to see the remaining Singapore issues dropped altogether from the WTO work programme and called for technical assistance on trade facilitation. Overall, the group reportedly was less then enthusiastic with regard to discussing trade facilitation before seeing movement on more pressing issues, such as agriculture.
According to trade sources, the EC’s position was not yet clear on the Singapore issues. The same held true for the Latin American countries, although some had indicated a willing ness to look at the Singapore issues within a broader context, depending progress in other negotiating bodies.
Background on the ‘core group’
The informal ‘core group’ represents developing countries from different regions and regional groupings. The group emerged prior to the Cancun ministerial meeting on the basis of a common understanding among its members on the Singapore issues. The group crystallised after a draft text was released right before the Cancun meeting (see BRIDGES Weekly 28 August 2003) and consolidated at and in the period following Cancun. The group presently includes Bangladesh (representing LDCs), Botswana, Egypt, Cuba, China, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya, Nigeria, Philippines, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe and Malaysia (presently coordinating the ‘core group’). Mauritius and Trinidad and Tobago have been also been invited to participate as representatives of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries at ‘core group’ meetings. Venezuela is the only Latin American member of the group. One trade delegate remarked that while all ‘core group’ members had a common position on how to approach the Singapore issues, positions would be debated and further fleshed out at upcoming meetings of LDC ministers in Dakar, Senegal at the beginning of May, African ministers in Kigali, Rwanda, at the end of May, and a G-90 ministerial meeting (comprising ACP, Africa group and LDCs) in Guyana at a date yet to be set.
The next informal meeting on trade facilitation is scheduled for 16 April.
ICTSD reporting.