About 15 activists forced their way into the conference venue in central Hong Kong to shout slogans as the World Trade Organization’s director general, Pascal Lamy, addressed the opening session.
Ministers from the 149-member WTO will spend the next six days trying to salvage the Doha Round of trade negotiations, currently deadlocked over sharp regional disputes over agricultural subsidies and import tariffs.
In his speech, Lamy has called for "boldness" among ministers to take risks for trade liberalization and balanced development agenda.
Lamy’s speech was interrupted by a group of NGO’s, who were able to sneak into the session hall bearing the placards "WTO kills the farmers."
The protesters, however, were escorted out and Lamy continued with his speech.
Donald Chang, chief executive of the Special Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China urged the conference to push forward the development agenda.
Hong Kong was noted as the proper venue for the conference having been a center of trade even if its deep seaport was the only advantage.
Manuel Antonio Teehankee, Philippine permanent ambassador to the WTO, called the meeting an "important stepping stone if we have to conclude the round by 2006."
"As such it is doubly important because it leads to sustainable development and fairer multilateral trade," Teehankee said.
After the formal opening, trade negotiators from 148-member countries of the WTO buckled down to work as informal intensive negotiations followed right after.
Individual country positions would be delivered starting tomorrow by Trade Ministers of each member country.
Trade and Industry Secretary Peter B. Favila, who is still in Kuala Lumpur, attending the ASEAN Leaders’ Summit, is expected to arrive here today to deliver the Philippine position.
Meanwhile, the G-20, a group of 21 developing member countries including the Philippines, has urged WTO Ministers to agreed the modalities on the substantial reduction in agricultural subsidies no later than April next year.
At the same time, the G20 is urging that draft schedules for reduction must be submitted no later than three months thereafter and eliminate all export subsidies by 2010.
This was the agreed position of the G-20 at yesterday’s formal opening of the 6th WTO Ministerial Conference here as they pressed for what they called as the "bottom up" approach.
"As agriculture is the engine of the negotiations, the G-20 expects that Ministers in Hong Kong will provide a sound basis for making progress in the negotiations putting the process on track," the G-20 statement said.
At the heart of its proposal is the imperative to ensure substantial reductions in trade-distorting domestic support through both reductions and disciplines.
According to the G-20, the largest structural distortion in international trade occurs in agriculture through the combination of high tariffs, domestic support and export subsidies that protect inefficient farmers in developed countries.
On the overall trade distorting support, the G-20 has proposed that EU should 80 percent, the US at 75 percent and Japan at 70 percent.
EU has already agreed to 70 percent cut while the US has proposed 53 percent cut provided EU will cut at 75 percent.
On the aggregate measure of support, the G-20 has proposed that EU cut by 80 percent, U.S. by 70 percent and Japan by 60 percent.
The U.S. has proposed a 60 percent cut and that EU should cut at 83 percent.
G-20 said they expect that ministers meeting in Hong Kong will provide a sound basis for making progress in the negotiations putting the process firmly on track.
These developing countries stressed that removing these anti-development measures is a core objective of the Doha Round as it will help in reclaiming the development dimension of the Doha Development Agenda and the meaningful integration of developing countries into the global economy.
The G-20 was also determined to make operational and effective the provisions on special and differential treatment in the Framework, in particular on special products and special safeguard mechanism to safeguard food security, rural development and livelihood concerns of millions of people from poor countries.
In particular, the G-20 cited the case of the African cotton producing countries as evidence of distortions in agriculture which the Hong Kong Ministerial must address expeditiously.
The G-20 accounts for almost 60 percent of the world’s population, 70 percent of the world’s rural population and 26 percent of the world’s agricultural exports.
The G-20 position was shared by other developing country groups such as the LDCs, the African Group, the G-33, the ACPs, the Caricom, the G-90 and the Small, Vulnerable Economies Group.
G-20 member countries are Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Egypt, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Paraguay, Philippines, South Africa, Tanzania, Thailand, Uruguay Round, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
