The hopes of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) including Bangladesh to push ahead the agenda for extending LDC-specific trade benefits for graduated LDCs by at least six to nine years are likely to be sidelined in the 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The four-day highest level meeting of the WTO (MC12) is going to start officially in-person in Geneva today.
The draft LDC ministerial declaration, adopted and submitted by the LDCs in October last year proposed 'an interim arrangement for smooth LDC transition by calling on members to grant LDCs unilateral trade preferences, to have procedures in place to extend and gradually phase out their preferential market access scheme for graduated countries over a period of six to nine years.'
Official sources in Geneva said the graduating LDCs could not reach consensus with the developed countries on the conditions they have to comply with to enjoy the extended trade benefits.
The issue was dropped from the agenda of the 12th ministerial conference of WTO, that would continue until Jun 15, 2022, they confirmed.
Bangladesh along with some other LDCs is going to graduate from the UN category of poor countries by 2026.
Tipu Munshi, the commerce minister of Bangladesh, is leading the country's delegation in the MC12.
Chad is the LDC coordinator. At present 35 LDCs are WTO members and 19 of them, including Bangladesh, are on the path to graduation within four to eight years.
Meanwhile, ministers and senior officials responsible for looking after their countries' trade and commerce started to arrive in Geneva, the Swiss city at the gateway to the Alps, to seal a deal on some unfinished multilateral trade agendas at a critical juncture the world is facing due to the Russia-Ukraine war and the post-Covid situation.
The meeting of the topmost decision making body of the multilateral trade-rule making organisation was last held four and a half years back in Argentine capital Buenos Aires in December, 2017. The conference ended without any declaration and concrete decision.
As the trade or commerce or relevant ministers and senior officials of 164 members of the WTO have finally managed to sit together in-person, expectation is there that they will not return empty handed.
WTO's spokesperson Daniel Pruzin, at a press briefing on Tuesday last, said: "... significant progress has been made on each of the issues and we expect discussions to continue…WTO Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is cautiously optimistic on an outcome… some serious issues are out there and will take a lot of work."
Moreover, the ministers already have a number of partially negotiated or almost agreed topics in hands to finalise the deals. The revised draft text agreement for new global rules to curb harmful fishing subsidies has already been circulated for the ministers' review, discussion and decision. Fisheries subsidy is a critical agenda and effort is there to abolish the subsidy gradually to protect the global fish stocks that are at risk of collapsing in many parts of the world due to overexploitation. It may not be easy to bring an outcome on fisheries subsidies as proponents and opponents are still divided, said some insiders.
Again, negotiators in Geneva have also already completed their work on two draft texts setting out a WTO response to the Covid-19 pandemic, including an intellectual property (IP) response.
Insiders added that there would be hard bargaining on intellectual property rights or patent waiver for Covid-19 vaccines, drugs and diagnostic devices. Hectic negotiation is going on as developing and developed countries have taken opposite stances on the patent waiver issue.
Mr Devabrata Chakraborty, Commercial Counsellor of Bangladesh's Permanent Mission in Geneva, told the FE on Saturday that the Bangladesh delegation was actively participating in all discussions, particularly on the LDC graduation issue as the LDC group's focal point.
"It's very difficult to get a simple decision accepted in the WTO. Therefore, we do not want to prejudge any outcome on graduation, although this issue is supported by a large number of WTO members," he added.
"A few influential delegations are yet to endorse this request of the LDCs," he continued. Bangladesh and other LDCs were sincerely working with the developed countries who might help expedite the process for a positive outcome in this regard.
