APEC economies to play WTO lobbying role

NUSADUA. The economies of APEC will share the task of lobbying Asian, European and South American countries on trade facilitation agreements in the World Trade Organization (WTO).

“APEC has carried out a distribution of work concerning its efforts to remove differences of opinion among WTO member countries on trade facilitation. It is agreed that the US is the lobbyist for the European Union [EU]; three Latin American countries – Chile, Mexico and Peru – for the South America region; and Indonesia for the Asian region,” said Indonesian Trade Minister Gita Wirjawan.

He was speaking in a joint press conference with Coordinating Economic Minister Hatta Radjasa and Industry Minister MS Hidayat on the sidelines of the APEC Summit 2013 in Nusa Dua, Bali, on Tuesday.

Gita said Indonesia had offered to lobby India, Bhutan, Nepal and Pakistan, particularly on agriculture issues. “We will talk to them to make sure that there will be no food commodity exportation,” he said as quoted by Antara news agency.

Since the Doha Round in 2001, Gita said, one issue that was difficult for the US and India to agree on was alleged food piling by India.

“We know that India should be responsible for its 1.2 billion population by ensuring the availability of food sufficient enough for supply. We have to ensure it will be conducted only for domestic needs,” he said.

With such a measure, Gita said, negotiations that would be carried out by the trade ministers of WTO member countries could yield concrete results after 12 years of stagnation since the Doha Round.

“We hope that with these measures, the WTO meeting in Bali in December will bring more optimism,” said Gita. (The Jakarta Post)