by Pierre Ausseill
LIBREVILLE, Nov 15 (AFP) - Several African government ministers meeting
here with experts from the World Trade Organization (WTO) and US and EU
officials on Wednesday refused to join a new world trade round, saying it
would be premature.
A number of African delegations, including those from Egypt and
Mauritius,
have refused to sign a final declaration in favour of a new trade round
after
three days of discussions, said a trade official close to the negotiations,
who requested anonymity.
Kenya, Zambia, Botswana and Mauritania then followed suit, to the
disappointment of the WTO, the European Union and the United States, which
had
pressed strongly for the African countries to join a new round of talks.
On Wednesday, discussions continued among 51 African countries without a
consensus emerging, the trade official told AFP, after closed-door talks had
gone on late into the night Tuesday.
Some delegates said they had no mandate from their governments to commit
their countries firmly to a new trade round.
"We are pragmatic and we know ... that one day there will be a new round
of
negotiations," Magdy Farahat, Egypt's representative at the WTO in Geneva,
told AFP.
However, African countries will not begin new talks as long as parts of
older agreements have not yet been implemented, he added.
The EU has been pressing for a new round of negotiations which would add
to
existing agreements in the agriculture and service industry sectors and
extend
deals to other areas such as competition policy and investment.
"Some African countries are afraid of taking up the new issues since they
have already taken a good while to digest the agreements already negotiated
in
the Uruguay round and are asking for more time to implement them
effectively,"
commented a western expert on condition of anonymity.
After the Uruguay round, "we opened up our markets but certain countries
(in the northern hemisphere) haven't finished opening up theirs," Farahat
said.
Gabon's Commerce Minister Alfred Mabika had appealed Monday for a "strong
Libreville statement" when the meeting began, but the meeting will now
likely
end with a simple communique, the member of the African delegation said.
The Libreville seminar, organized by the WTO, aimed to give African
governments a better understanding of the complexities of WTO agreements to
help them negotiate new ones more effectively, according to officials in the
organisation.
Delegates from the WTO, the EU and the United States have all stressed
that
technical assistance was being given to African ministers to help them
better
understand the workings of the WTO, which was set up by the Uruguay Round of
discussions held in 1986-1994.
Ministers and government experts from 53 African countries have been
attending a series of workshops on different aspects of WTO rules and
agreements.
Forty-one African countries are in the WTO, making up almost a third of
the
total membership of 139, but the continent accounts for less than two
percent
of global exports, the organisation has stated.
Major WTO talks in Seattle a year ago were aborted with a flare-up
between
Japan and Europe on one side and the United States on the other over trade
protection. The Seattle talks also led to widespread public protest over the
terms of world trade, particularly the impact of globalisation on developing
countries.
pal/nb/gj
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