African Countries Draw thier Red Lines in the DDA Mini-Ministerial Meeting in Geneva today!

African ministers participating in the furore to salvage the Doha Round in Geneva, have drawn their red lines! Led by two deputy prime ministers (Honourable Uhuru Kenyatta Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Trade of Kenya and Mr. Ramkrishna Sithanen, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Finance and Economic Development of Mauritius) has declared in a joint statement that there will not support any deal that falls short of their expectations on one of these key issues of interest to their economies:

Cotton. African ministers are demanding an ambitious, expeditious and specific treatment on cotton in the Round as cotton is key for wide range of livelihoods in their economies. On this issue they have been able to gun support from the Caribbean and the Pacific Countries together with the G20 a group of major developing countries coordinated by Brazil.Essentially they are calling upon members like U.S. to reduce huge subsidies given to cotton farmers in the U.S., market opening for cotton bi-products from African cotton growing countries like Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin (members of the famous C4)

Bananas. The ministers are also calling for a separate treatment of the banana issue from the general agriculture modalities. They are insisting on reviewing the current deal that was reached under the auspices of the WTO Director General Pascal Lamy and they vowed that, they will seek his attention with intent to revise substantially and improve the results on the banana issue taking into account the specific interests and development concerns of the banana producers on the continent. The team on banana is lead by Mr. Mbarga Atangana Luc Magloire, Minister of Trade of Cameroun who is the spokesperson of the group on the banana issue.

Preferential Erosion! The long standing preference erosion will be a make or break issue for Africa and for almost all the developing countries in the current negotiations. The African and the Caribbean countries have long enjoyed preferences with in the developed countries markets like the EU and U.S., these preferences are being threatened by the proposed tariffs cuts and the African countries will fight tooth and nail to save some preferences on some key products (technically being called the preferential products in the negotiations) but these products overlap with tropical products proposed by the developing countries from Latin American Countries causing friction between the two groups. The African Ministers have emphasised the need for a "trade solution" on this issue of preference erosion in which they are seeking an implementation period of atleast 10 years minimum before tariffs are cut (implementing the cuts) on their selected preferential products. They are also seeking developed countries to commit themselves on the non-trade solution to the preference erosion problem by providing technical assistance to the affected countries during the transition period to help them adjust and diversify into other lines of products.

Watch this space for further developments the negotiations!