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Poor ready to pit against rich at WTO meet today

STAFF CORRESPONDENT
The crucial fifth ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) begins today at the Mexican resort of Cancun amid hopes and fears, particularly of poor countries like Bangladesh.
The meeting to be attended by trade ministers of all 146 member countries of the WTO, is scheduled
to wrap up on Saturday.
The member governments of the WTO aim to use the five-day meeting to hammer out a new global agreement on trade -- one that balances sharply contradictory demands from rich and poor nations.
Bangladesh, the coordinator of the 49 least developed countries (LDCs), has been made vice-
chairman of the meet to be run by its Commerce Minister Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury. He will be leading a 14-member delegation to the meet.
"Bangladesh will make all efforts to press home the 16-point demand of the LDCs in accordance with the Dhaka Declaration adopted in June following a three-day conference of
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the LDC trade ministers," the commerce minister said to The Daily Star on Sunday.
The Dhaka Declaration includes temporary movement of natural persons, binding commitment on duty- and quota-free access of the LDC products to the market of the developed countries, enhanced market share of the LDCs in global trade and a moratorium on antidumping duties on the products of the LDCs.
The first draft of the WTO, made available to all member countries at the end of July, made no commitment in favour of the LDCs as reflected in Dhaka Declaration, prompting Bangladesh to reject the draft outright and urge the WTO Secretariat to include provisions in favour of the poor countries in the next draft.
The second draft prepared in end-August also frustrated the LDCs including Bangladesh as it did not make any categorical commitment towards the LDCs. However, following repeated appeals by Bangladesh to the WTO, the latest draft has included 'movement of service provider', but it does not clearly mean the movement of natural persons, which the LDCs
have been demanding, experts said.
Dhaka also protested the second draft, and permanent Representative of Bangladesh to WTO, Geneva, Dr. Toufiq Ali has expressed the concern to the WTO, sources said.
The final declaration of the meeting is likely to be made on the basis of the latest draft of the WTO.
Dr. Debapriya Bhattacharya, eminent economist and executive director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), told The Daily Star recently that Bangladesh should pursue both offensive and defensive strategies during the Cancun talks to reap maximum benefit.
Issues like market access, temporary movement of natural persons and implementation of different pledges made earlier in favour of the LDCs should figure prominently on the 'offensive' agenda, he said.
While the Singapore issues -which include multilateral investment policy and transparency in government procurement and trade facilitation -- and agriculture issues need to be negotiated defensively because if agreed and implemented, they would pose enormous threat to the national economy, he observed.
Sources both in the public and
private sectors said the economy of Bangladesh and other LDCs would be hit hard once the Singapore issues are adopted.
The meet is likely to make it binding for all WTO member countries to open their service sectors for foreign investment, which will also be disastrous for countries like Bangladesh, the sources feared.
Earlier, the commerce minister said Bangladesh would not sign any WTO agreement that may go against its interest.
The WTO held its first ministerial conference in 1996 in Singapore, which pledged to offer duty- and quota-free market access of all products originating from the LDCs to the developed countries. But the rich nations are yet to fulfil the pledge.
The Cancun conference has been convened to assess progress made towards trade liberalisation under the Doha Development Agenda, adopted by the WTO in November in Doha, Qatar.
According to Doha Declaration, all trade-related negotiations have to be completed by January 2005. But no significant development to that end has so far been made.