Statement delivered by Mr. Amoako at the WTO meeting in Seattle, Monday 29th November, 1999.

Mr. Chairman
Honourable Ministers,
Secretary General of UNCTAD
Director General of WTO
Distinguished Delegates,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

 It is indeed a great honor and privilege for me to be here with you in Seattle on the occasion of the third Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organisation.

Permit me, Mr. Chairman, to first congratulate and thank Mr. Rubens Ricupero for the great leadership he has provided as the head of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and to congratulate Mr. Mike Moore on an extremely promising start as head of the WTO . Based upon your distinguished records and your statements today, we have confidence that a way will be found to build a more balanced, fair and equitable international trade and development system.

I would also like to thank His Excellency, Mr. Tofail Ahmed, Minister of Commerce and Industry of the People's Republic of Bangladesh and Ambassador Iftekhar Ahmed Chawdhury for coordinating the interests of the LDCs and convening this important meeting.

Unlike the previous two WTO Ministerial Meetings, in Singapore and Geneva, this particular meeting marks a critical juncture for the countries in the developing world, and the Least Developed Countries in particular.

It is generally acknowledged Mr. Chairman, that, the Least Developed Countries, of which Africa is the home to most, have to date derived minimal benefits from the WTO environment. With 10 percent of the world’s people, the LDCs of our continent account for only 0.3 percent of world trade, which is down to half their share just two decades ago. By contrast, in the first decade of the WTO, 70 percent of the benefits from the WTO trade environment are projected to go to the industrialised countries.

How can the international community redress these inequities? What should you Ministers of the Least Developing Countries ask of the industrialised countries in order to improve your countries participation and share in the benefits of the WTO?

Three perspectives urge us in different directions: (1) the view that the outcome will be excellent for us, and we need no special action; (2) the view that the rich have benefited disproportionately, perhaps at our expense, and we therefore have to be vigilant to safeguard our interests; and (3) the view that the deck is so stacked against us that we had better not play in this game at all. There is some truth is each of these views. But, Mr. Chairman, we are not here because we want to encourage a lop-sided system, nor because we want to protest at this meeting. We are here because we must safeguard against further backsliding, and because we sense a new willingness to achieve fairness in addressing our needs. This is an opportunity we cannot ignore. And neither can we take the outcome for granted.

Mr. Chairman,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen:

I believe that all stakeholders, less developed and industrialized countries alike will find it in their best interests to search for a fairer framework for international trade relations. After all, developing countries account for nearly one-third of the exports of goods, and nearly a quarter of the exports of services. This new framework must transcend narrow self-interests of powerful groups in the wealthy countries in order to build relationships between countries based on enduring and moral principles.

As Joseph E. Stiglitz, Sr. Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank, so eloquently pointed out recently, "the new round of multilateral trade negotiations must be based on the principle of fairness, and especially fairness to the developing countries". During the Uruguay Round negotiations the rich countries pursued the interests of their most powerful political constituencies. The weaknesses in the capacity of the poor countries to link the trade issues with their broad and complex development agenda meant that their core interests were not considered for negotiation; nor were they adequately prepared to defend themselves against unfavorable outcomes.

The rich countries, Mr. Chairman, concerned about their powerful domestic constituencies, did not volunteer at that time to help the disadvantaged poor countries. Unless there is greater balance in future, trade negotiations are likely to be at great risk of failure, resulting in adoption of non-tariff, non-transparent restrictive regimes in one form or another by an increasing number of countries. Such a prospect could erase many of the gains from past liberalisation. Given the current evidence of widespread use of anti-dumping and countervailing duties, this is an all-too-real prospect.

Mr. Chairman,
Excellencies,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen:

If the Millennium Round is to be successful, it must redress the inequities of the Uruguay Round and be more comprehensive in its sectoral and issues- coverage. A broadened agenda would be balanced in its content, process and outcomes, and would fully accommodate the legitimate interests of the developing countries.

Here, there must be recognition that the key national objective of developing countries, and LDCs in particular, is not trade volume per se; but rather it is poverty reduction. You and I know that there will be a number of delegations that will say that Seattle is the wrong city to discuss poverty reduction. We will be told that the city of the World Bank and IMF or the city of the OECD or the city of the Lome Convention, are more apt. But we must insist that this is the time and this is the place to craft policies that will help us to reduce poverty.

We don’t have the luxury of compartmentalization. We have to remember that although macroeconomic stability is important, equally important are policies and programs that promote broad- based, labor-absorbing patterns of growth to ensure that the poor participate and benefit from income growth. We cannot ignore the survival nexus of population, environment, agriculture and development. In this cutting edge science center of the world, we are reminded of our requirement to nurture science and technology to surmount barriers to development.

We cannot set aside the development of our economic and social infrastructure. Further, we did not leave at home our concerns about the specter of HIV/AIDS haunting our people. And in this almost wholly male-dominated negotiation, we do not leave behind the concern that our women must be empowered.

We view trade and private financial flows as key elements in the financing of development for poverty reduction, as are official development assistance and debt relief. In this context, the G-7 countries’ initiative at the Cologne Summit to provide LDCs with financing for debt relief was appropriately linked to poverty reduction. This was a welcome development. What is puzzling is that the same rich countries are cutting aid in the spirit of "Trade, not Aid" and in addition maintaining trade barriers against exports from the very countries they say they are trying to help by financing development for poverty reduction. If ever there was a misguided phrase, "Trade, not Aid" wins the prize.

Can we go back to our countries after this meeting and say "Don’t worry about research on the 12 strains of the HIV/AIDS virus attacking us—viruses which are not being researched in the West. Don’t worry because we cut half a percent on fibres and textiles." "Don’t worry, we will be able to put computers in all our schools, because we pushed down one of the non-tariff barriers we faced." Very rich economies can make these tradeoffs since the development benefits from trade come to them so quickly. But for the poorest countries, our urgent needs for social development and economic infrastructure are not items which are inter-changeable with trade. We cannot put these items at risk.

Let us not give comfort to those aid givers eyeing the exit door. We know donors face pressures. We know a lot about pressure. So let the phrase be "Trade and Aid" and let us craft reinforcing ways for policies to bring out the best in each, and to enhance their mutual synergy.

Will better trade policies help us? Surely, without a doubt.

That is why the trade interests vital to the LDCs, Mr. Chairman, must be accommodated, including most importantly, facilitating the access of our products to the markets of developed countries. Access will also facilitate a complementary flow of knowledge and increase productivity in both the sending and receiving economies. For most LDCs, these potential benefits, in particular, increase our stakes in the reduction of tariffs in industrial countries, for agricultural goods, textile, leather products and a number of services, such as construction.

But while more integrative trade policies hold out benefits to us, they also carry risks. The fact is that many of our countries have been liberalizing, but this brings volatility to our economies and higher risks than in the industrialized countries. Unlike the rich countries, most LDCs have no safety nets and jobs are hard to come by. If liberalisation is pushed beyond a prudent pace, we face political turmoil.

Moreover, the implementation costs involved in the trade liberalisation decisions of the past were little compared to the cost of implementing a number of recent and prospective WTO rules and provisions, such as custom valuation and intellectual property rights. Their implementation requires creating new infrastructure and institutions. They require investment, such as complex management skills, training of staff, and the purchase and installation of equipment and procedures.

Mr. Chairman,
Friends,

The costs and risks of trade integration are all the more reason to keep trade and aid linked. Indeed, we should be considering debt reduction, trade and aid as a package for financing poverty-reducing development programs of LDCs.

Concrete and effective steps must be incorporated in the Millenium Round process to meet the LDC countries’ technical assistance needs. Here, aid and trade often are intertwined. For example, participation was minimal by LDCs, particularly from Sub-Saharan Africa, in the rules-making exercises of the Uruguay Round. This was largely because these countries lacked the capacity to engage substantively on a wide range of issues.

A case in point, Mr. Chairman, was the inability by African LDCs to seek credit during negotiations for measures that had already been undertaken. Although trade reforms in Africa began somewhat later than elsewhere, they accelerated from the late 1980s under Structural Adjustment Programmes—programmes that included trade reforms. African countries however, seldom chose to "bind their tariffs", even though under the Uruguay Round rules they would have received "negotiating credit" for having done so, as did some Latin American countries. Let us also not forget that because of the complexity of the WTO system, most LDCs made commitments beyond the implementation capability of their institutions.

For effective participation by LDCs’in the WTO processes, it is also important that the decision-making processes be more transparent. The conduct of the WTO’s business, including the determination of the agenda for the Ministerial Meetings, prompts anxiety. Controversy regarding the agenda here in Seattle and the inadequate consultations with most LDC members about what should, or should not be on the agenda, are real issues in fostering LDCs’ participation and sharing in the ownership of WTO processes.

Furthermore, the WTO must act to dispel the feeling by many LDCs, based on previous participation in Ministerial Meetings, that you were not given equal opportunity in terms of allotted time, vis-a-vis richer country counterparts, to present positions in the various sessions. This time you must be sure that you are included in the "informal" groups of rich countries where decisions tend to be made. Thus, transparency and the principle of equal participation in the WTO, are issues you must raise seriously so as to reverse the tendency and impression that the organization is simply a rich man’s club.

Equally important in strengthening your effectiveness in the negotiating process, is a redoubling of our efforts at capacity building through appropriate policies and programs. The "Comprehensive and Integrated WTO Plan of Action for the Least Developed Countries (LDCs)" adopted in Singapore, should be implemented vigorously and effectively. New obligations to LDCs under WTO should be linked to concurrent, results-based implementation of the Plan of Action. By adopting that Plan, the WTO reaffirmed the legitimacy of preferential treatment for LDCs and committed itself to technical assistance for LDCs,in order to help them meet WTO requirements.

This would suggest that until the capacity of LDCs is sufficiently strong, the rich members of the WTO should refrain from going beyond the "built-in agenda". But since important areas of interest to LDCs were marginalised in the Uruguay Round, it is most advisable for LDCs to press for a more comprehensive agenda and more vigorous implementation of the technical assistance program.

The challenge we face here is whether you can craft the multilateral trading system to be responsive to the development aspirations of LDCs. Your challenge is whether the "Millennium Round" will be "the Development Round", which, among other things will be:

A round which will reduce and/or eliminate tariffs in developed countries for most exports of least developed countries;

A round which will improve access to markets of developed countries of exports of agricultural products of the LDCs;

A round which will lead to legitimate environmental and labour concerns being enforced by international machinery and not by capricious unilateral actions;

A round which will lead to a more holistic way of assuring that resource flows to the LDCs are improved;

A round which will lead to effective technical assistance to enable LDCs to be integrated in the global trading system in efficient ways ;

A round which will permit you to to legally adapt developed country technology to suit your conditions ; and finally,

A round where you will succeed in adapting WTO obligations and the timing of their implementation to the needs and capacities of your countries.

Mr Chairman,
Friends,

For us, the ultimate challenge here in Seattle is to have a negotiating round that will be an instrument for realising the poverty reduction goals of the UN’s Copenhagen Conference-- reducing poverty by half by the year 2015.

Thank you.