By IANS,
New Delhi : Speaking on behalf of African nations, Egyptian Trade Minister Rachid Mohamed Rachid Thursday called for early resolution of issues concerning global cotton trade, which remained an important crop for several countries in the continent.
“African countries remain concerned that no significant progress has been made in some key issues of interest to them,” Rachid told the mini-ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) here.
“Suffice to mention that one of the most important issues for Africa, cotton was not even discussed during the July 2008 mini-ministerial,” said the minister who was among 40 trade ministers invited by India for the two-day conference.
“We call on to constructively resolve the cotton issue and other priorities to Africa in Doha negotiations.”
In fact, WTO Director General Pascal Lamy has called for a fairer global system on cotton trade and said resolving issues concerning this commodity remained the litmus test for the development agenda of the Doha round.
He said developed economies, especially the US and the EU, have to slash trade-distorting subsidies they give to their cotton producers and market access for cotton-producing countries should be improved.
Lamy, also here for the WTO mini-ministerial meeting, maintains that rich economies need to eliminate export subsidies on cotton and that can only happen within the framework of the successful conclusion of the Doha Development Round that was launched in 2001.
The world cotton production is estimated to have declined 6 percent in 2008-2009 to 24.7 million tonnes, falling below the 25-million-tonne mark for the first time in five seasons.
In the July 2008 meeting of WTO trade ministers in Geneva, there was a failure to arrive at a consensus on the modalities in both agriculture and industry. As a result, a major opportunity was missed to finalise cotton-specific commitments, said Lamy.