The rich are still cheating developing countries

The World Trade Organisation's Doha round of trade negotiations is billed as a development round, reflecting the fact that developing countries were reluctant to start another one unless structural imbalances in trade were addressed as a priority. Part of the development agenda is acceptance of the need for special and differential treatment for developing countries, and especially for least developed countries, or LDCs, which make up more than 20 per cent of the WTO's membership.

Ever since the establishment of the WTO in 1995 there have been calls for developed countries to provide the LDCs with duty-free, quota-free market access for products they produce and export. The logic is that, by providing such access, developed countries would be assisting them to improve their economic performance and so raise millions out of poverty. This is considered a win-win situation because, as populations in the least developed countries became richer, they would consume more goods and services provided by the rest of the world, resulting in global economic growth.

Given this common acceptance of the benefits of free trade it would seem obvious to grant LDCs the special treatment they have been asking for. Yet, the LDCs have been forced to fight hard to wring even the smallest of concessions, despite the public commitments from politicians in the developed world to assist them.

At the Hong Kong ministerial meeting last December, the LDCs negotiated through five nights and days to get the duty-free, quota-free market access they wanted, with development issues always put on the agenda as the last item and always discussed in the small hours of the morning, when concentration levels and spirits were at their lowest. Even then, the LDCs only managed to extract an agreement for duty-free, quota-free market access for at least 97 per cent of products originating from LDCs, rather than the 100 per cent they were seeking.

To the uninitiated there may be little difference between 97 per cent and100 per cent but the 3 percentage point difference could mean exclusion of the entire range of exports of LDCs, which are concentrated in certain items. The 97 per cent compromise was accepted by the LDC group on condition that this was a framework agreement and that implementation would be worked out after the Hong Kong meeting.

Negotiations on development issues are conducted in the committee on trade and development. Post-Hong Kong, the LDC group has been preparing to negotiate the details of how developed countries should provide the minimum of 97 per cent product coverage promised in Hong Kong.

However, it would appear that the US and some other rich countries will go to any lengths to renege on the promises made to the WTO's poorest and most vulnerable members. These countries are now using procedural issues to stop LDCs from trying to improve market access. They are arguing, in effect, that developed countries gave LDCs what they wanted in Hong Kong and that implementation is not open to negotiation.

The developed countries are trying to stop LDCs from having their concerns heard in the committee, the only forum LDCs can use to negotiate the details of implementation of the proposed market access provisions. This attempt to deny basic rights is accompanied, at times, with an attempt to trade the LDCs' need for improved market access against promises of increased aid. While much as this aid is appreciated by LDCs, it should not be seen as a substitute for improved market access.

In his letter to the Financial Times of March 10, Bob Geldof characterised the exclusion of Africa from the Group of Six meetings - involving the US, the European Union, India, Brazil, Japan and Australia - as a display of arrogance and a disgrace. Not only is all of Africa excluded from the G6 talks but so are the LDCs, which only highlights the dilemma faced by countries marginalised in trade talks - we are weak because we are marginalised and we are marginalised because we are weak.

LDCs are determined to do all they can to help themselves but, in the process, must be given the opportunity to have access to the negotiating bodies of the WTO to pursue their interests so that they are not forced to air their grievances in the press. The LDCs insist that duty-free and quota-free market access is part of a single undertaking on trade. I still do not know what part of "no" the rich countries do not understand.

The writer is Zambia's minister of commerce, trade and industry and co-ordinator of the least developed countries in the Doha round.