WTO meeting failed not reach consensus
Egypt yesterday urged the ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to take proper steps in order to eliminate the imbalance between rights and duties in the 1993 Uruguay round.
Addressing the gathering early yesterday, Egypt's Minister of Economy Boutros Ghali said that the environment and labor standards could not be among new negotiation topics and described the suggested standards as masked projectionist measures meant to curb the flow of exports from the developing world. He urged the WTO membership be expanded.
"One of the goals of the Uruguay agreements, that are not fully implemented, is the preferential treatment of developing countries, Ghali said. He affirmed that some countries use these agreements as a protection means, misusing antidumping measures, technical standards and validity of documents.
The agreement on textile and clothes was not seriously implemented by the importing developed states, technical assistance given to developing states was not sufficient, and restrictions on opening markets to these goods were not loosened up, he said.
"The importance of Seattle talks lies in the future steps and foundation of policies to be taken during the new millennium by backing the multilateral system," he said. This future system entails the full partnership of developing countries in wording the rules of this order and make gains on a win-win basis between the north and south, he expounded.
"Egypt, as a developing country, exerted all possible efforts to achieve the goals of this trade system by opening its markets and exporting its products and Egypt will comply with the due talks on agricultural and services," he said. "Egypt stresses the preferential treatment of the third world countries and expansion of chances to export their produce to the developed world markets in agriculture," Ghali added.
On services, he said the talks should allow the developing countries more participation in the international trade of services under the existing rules of service trade. The Seattle meeting could not reach agreement ( CNN reported today). This is because of the wide gap between the participating delegation of these two issues. The developing countries do not want to include them (services) in the coming round of talks.
On a related development, US President Bill Clinton lauded the success Egypt has maintained in economic reform program under the leadership of President Hosni Mubarak. He deemed Egypt’s economic reform program as a model to follow suit by all developing countries.