India, S Africa lead core group over Nama

Developing countries led by India and South Africa today set up a "core group" to address the challenges posed by the developed countries on Non-agricultural Market Access (Nama) negotiations.

The developed countries have made any concession in agriculture conditional to the developing countries lowering industrial tariffs.

Supported by nine countries including Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia, the Philippines, Venezuela, Namibia and Egypt, the core group on Nama, in a letter to John Tsang, chairman of the Sixth Ministerial Conference, expressed their displeasure at the exclusion of the provision pertaining to "flexibilities for developing countries" from the draft ministerial text.

"While developing countries are prepared to make a contribution to the Nama negotiations, we find the developed countries reluctant to offer their fair share," the letter said, adding that Para 8 of the July framework agreement, which allows developing countries two flexibilities in the form of applying less than formula cuts for up to 10 per cent tariff lines and keeping up to 5 per cent of the tariff lines as unbound, should be finally settled as a stand-alone provision with no linkage to other formulae and elements.

Build-up to the setting up of the core group began earlier in the day when Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath said he had asked the European Union to lay its precise percentage cuts in Nama on the table and offered that India would undertake two-thirds of the cuts offered by it. "I have asked them to lay the specific offer on the table; they have not come back to me," he said.

European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson told reporters that the EU was open to two co-efficients under a simple Swiss formula. The EU had suggested a co-efficient of 10 for both developed and developing countries.

Mandelson said the EU was not carrying any proposal in its pocket. "What we have offered is on the table. All discussions are on the basis of a simple Swiss formula which has to be agreed to line by line. But, when it comes to final offers, words seem to evaporate. We need to agree this week on a simple Swiss formula with two co-efficients," he said.

Brazil Foreign Affairs Minister Celso Amorim said there was a general view among the G-20 member countries that the degree of specifics outlined in Nama should be parallel and proportional to the specifics in agriculture.

He, however, reiterated that the G-20 did not intend to formally formulate a stand on Nama as it intended to stick to its basic mandate of agriculture.

South African Minister for Trade and Industry Mandisi Mpahlwa, who held bilateral meetings with India and Brazil today, said he was talking to both countries to see if they could develop common positions on Nama and services.

There are some indications that Pakistan's proposal on Nama, to have a co-efficient for developed countries assuming their average bound tariff to be 6 per cent and a separate co-efficient for developing countries taking their average bound tariff as 30 per cent, could emerge as a consensus or middle path to take talks forward in Nama.

However, the ABI formula submitted by Argentina, Brazil and India is also alive, with Brazil now stating that it is reverting to the formula. Brazil had earlier decided to move away from the ABI formula.