Egypt achieves some gains
Egypt, Politics, 12/10/2001

Although making some concessions to convince the developing countries of launching a new round of multilateral trade negotiations, the developed countries have succeeded to get the World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial conference recently held in Doha out of the bottleneck.

The gatherings results were on the whole regarded as "satisfactory'' for the developing states, in addition to a package of gains received by both developing and developed countries, according to experts.

Regarding the gains obtained by the developing countries in the Doha Conference, Minister of Foreign Trade Youssef Boutros Ghali, who led Egypt's delegation to last month's meeting, said that the developing states, including Egypt, were able to oblige the European side to write off subsidies on exports and domestic production especially Agricultural products.

This step is considered as positive after the protracted conflict launched between the developing nations and the European side, Ghali added.

"We have explained to the Europeans that it is illogical to have an average of tariffs on the industrial products by five per cent, while that on the agricultural ones reach 40 per cent, " Ghali said.

Moreover, the developed countries have agreed on reducing the maximum percentage of tariffs with unifying the ascending rate imposed on the manufactured goods more than raw materials, he noted.

Egypt's industrial exports form nearly half of the non-oil exports; thus, it is in the country's interest to reduce the ascending tariffs, according to the minister.

It was also agreed in Doha that the developing states are not committed to making concessions reciprocally for the concessions made by the developed ones, in view of the difficult conditions facing the developing nations, Ghali added.

Among other gains, Ghali said that any coming negotiations will not link between environment and trade, while clarifying the relationship between the multilateral environment agreements and the WTO regulations.

The developing nations also proposed forming working groups for negotiations on trade and debts, trade and supply, trade and investment as well as competition, all of which are newly introduced issues by the developed states, Ghali further said.

During the six-day meeting in Doha, the developing countries voiced their desperate need for technical and financial assistance as well as the mechanisms to handle any issues before starting their implementation, He added

Regarding issues of intellectual property, public health and medicine, Ghali said that the developing states have now the right to take all necessary measures to protect their relevant interests.

On the same plane, Egypt through bilateral negotiations, has managed to get exemptions for all its exports, a matter which was not allowed before due to the increase of the per capita income in Egypt to over 1000 US dollars in line with the WTO rules, according to the Foreign Trade Minister.

Through negotiations with the Europeans, the European commission decided to put off, as of December dumping duties, previously imposed on Egyptian exports bed sheets, he added.

On the whole, the coming planned protracted multilateral negotiations means the beginning of a new real conflict between the developing and developed countries to demonstrate how far the developed nations are sincere in their promises to lure the developing countries to accept a new round of negotiations.

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