|
By December the new proposals by the group of 20 developing countries (G-20) for the World Trade Organization (WTO) should be ready.
The date will be the final limit for the 6th WTO Ministerial Meeting, to take place in Hong Kong, the former British colony that became a Chinese administrative area in 1997.
On returning to Brazil, after visiting Angola, the Brazilian Minister of Foreign Relations, Celso Amorim, spoke about the proposal that the G-20 has been defending.
According to Amorim, the proposal was close to a consensus at the last WTO meeting, the Mini-Ministerial Conference, in Dalian, a city in the northeast of China, close to the frontier with North Korea.
The G-20 made a proposal with the objective of reaching a balance in agricultural negotiations on three pillars. The first is for domestic support and forecasts the definition of a level for the reduction of the tariffs that generate distortions in foreign trade.
The second pillar is the freezing of all export subsidies. It also states that all forms of subsidies should be eliminated in a period no greater than five years.
In the third pillar, which refers to market access, the members of the G-20 considered that a formula for linear tariff reductions within bands is the best alternative to advance in the negotiations.
The minister stated that there will always be "more backward" sectors, but he showed greater optimism with regard to the proposal that, according to him, was well received by the United States and the European Union.
"I am convinced that we are going to advance," he said. Below, the main stretches of the interview:
How was the World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in China this month?
Celso Amorim - It was very positive because the G-20 brings together many developing countries of various kinds, from Brazil and Argentina, for example, who are very competitive in the agricultural area to countries that are less developed, like Tanzania.
And also large countries that have family farming, as is the case with India and Egypt. The proposal was well received both by the United States and by the European Union as a possible base for negotiations. This was a very important step.
What is the proposal based on? Does it seek guarantees for more loyal competition?
It is based on the Doha mandate itself and on the framework agreement that was signed in June last year in Geneva. Both point in the direction of elimination of export subsidies.
The president of the United States himself, George Bush, addressed the elimination of internal subsidies for the expansion of conditions for market access. This way you favor those who are more competitive, something very important for developing countries.
May the proposal face resistance?
There will always be more backward sectors that benefit from public funds. In reality, when you buy a kilogram of beef, lets say in Europe, if the meat is European, half of what you are buying is a subsidy.
This is the kind of not loyal competition that we want to eliminate or, at least, if it is not possible to eliminate it completely, to substantially reduce.
We have been working on that, even in the contentious cases, as is the case of cotton, sugar, which, in fact, are serving as impulses for some reforms. This has certainly taken place in the case of the European policy with regard to sugar, not enough, but there has been a reform, it is taking place.
Agência Brasil
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.