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CEBU—Leaders
of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean)
have strongly urged key major players—the United States
and the European Union— to “demonstrate flexibility” in
their policies on domestic subsidies to be able to
resume
Doha negotiations in the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The
leaders issued the statement at the 12th Asean Summit
being held in Cebu, emphasizing the importance of
reviving talks in the world economic body that would be
in sync with the implementation of key agreements signed
during the forum, including the acceleration of growth
of Asean economies by 2015.
“The
impasse in the negotiations must be broken, and to this
end, WTO members, particularly the major players, must
demonstrate flexibility by moving beyond their current
positions in key areas of the round and display resolve
in concluding the Doha round in a timely manner,” the
Asean Summit stand-alone statement on the WTO said.
At the
same time, the Asean leaders urged the Paris Club, a
group of world lenders, to consider the proposed debt
equity arrangements so they could fund projects on
poverty alleviation and other development projects in
line with the Millennium Development Goals of the United
Nations and similar key agreements.
“We
agreed that debt repudiation, debt forgiveness or even
discounts on existing levels of obligations are not the
appropriate measures to apply. However, we agreed that,
subject to mutual consent of creditors and debtors,
formulating modes to temporarily deploy debt service
payments to finance social overhead capital may at times
be necessary and beneficial,” stated the Asean
leaders.
Most of
the Asean members belong to the group of developing and
least developed countries that are both heavily indebted
and facing various nontariff barriers from rich
economies.
The
leaders stressed that major players in the WTO must
reach breakthroughs in the areas of agriculture and
nonagriculture market access (Nama) to put the
negotiations back on track. “This will entail forging
rules and disciplines on and making substantial
reductions in trade-distorting domestic support by the
major players and real reductions in both agriculture
and industrial tariffs,” stated the Asean leaders.
Meanwhile, they vowed to make their own contributions to
the outcome of the Doha round that would allow their
economies, mostly developing countries, to develop and
prosper.
“The
(Doha) Round offers a major juncture to put in place
significant reforms and reductions in trade-distorting
farm support, create meaningful and substantial market
access in agriculture, industrial goods and services,
and introduce improved WTO rules and trade facilitation
arrangements,” the Asean statement said.
The
Asean leaders who concluded their meetings here over the
weekend said they will instruct their respective
ministers, senior officials and representatives in
Geneva to intensify their efforts and involvement in the
negotiations. |
