Minister Bimha
Business Reporter
REGIONAL Trade Agreements should remain complementary and not substitute the Multilateral Trading System as the latter is the only trading platform that is inclusive and allows growing economies to have a voice as well as participate in setting the global rules of trade, Industry and Commerce Minister Mike Bimha has said.
Addressing a plenary session at the 10th World Trade Organisation Ministerial Conference in Nairobi, Kenya last week, Minister Bimha said Zimbabwe is ready to engage in a positive and constructive manner. The conference, though successful, was characterised by a lot of intense negotiations and on trade issues that pitted poor countries against their developed counterparts.
“Zimbabwe remains committed to the success of the Multilateral Trading System and is not in favour of the proliferation of plurilateral approaches that undermine the functioning and pre-eminence of this global rule setting organisation,” said Minister Bimha.
“We reiterate the need for a transparent, inclusive and member — driven process in all of our future work,” he said.
Minister Bimha registered his displeasure at the lack of commitment from the other members of the plenary and said this would result in very minimal progress. “My delegation is deeply concerned that we are likely to harvest a small and unbalanced package of outcomes at this Ministerial Conference.”
“The Doha Development Agenda has failed to deliver development outcomes because some among us have not been seriously engaging in these negotiations. We therefore urge all of us to engage constructively. The playing field should be levelled and future DDA negotiations should address the needs of the small and poor nations,” he said.
The Doha Round is the latest round of trade negotiations among the WTO membership. Its aim is to achieve major reform of the international trading system through the introduction of lower trade barriers and revised trade rules. The work programme covers about 20 areas of trade. The Round is also known semi-officially as the Doha Development Agenda as a fundamental objective is to improve the trading prospects of developing countries.
When they launched the Doha Round, ministers placed development at its centre. “We seek to place developing countries’ needs and interests at the heart of the Work Programme adopted in this Declaration,” they said. “… We shall continue to make positive efforts designed to ensure that developing countries, and especially the least-developed among them, secure a share in the growth of world trade commensurate with the needs of their economic development. In this context, enhanced market access, balanced rules, and well targeted, sustainably financed technical assistance and capacity-building programmes have important roles to play.”
“We therefore call for the reaffirmation of the DDA and its principles. It will be important that negotiations post MC10 continue under the current architecture and in line with previous Ministerial Decisions. This is what will deliver the development mandate, significantly contributing to the achievement of goal 17.10 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Africa’s Agenda 2063. I must emphasise that development should remain central to future negotiations,” said Minister Bimha.
“As regards new issues, my delegation would not be amenable to taking them up before the conclusion of the DDA. This is the position that we all agreed to in paragraph g. of the July package in a General Council Decision in 2004,” he said.