Trade is good

I made this post for the Spire Blog, as part of the things I use to do when I was in Norway, to participate in a debate group about Trade related issues.

I had this post pendent for a few weeks and finally I found time to finish it and publish it.

Here it is:

We have always known that trade agreements have very positive aims and Norway have proved that. This land's trade surplus of February was NOK 325 billion (around USD 55 billion) ranking 6th in the world, just behind Saudi Arabia, China, Germany, Russia and Ireland.

This surplus is basically focused on the oil and gas exports, which are the pillars or the Norwegian economy. One key element is that Norway makes very few buys and sells a lot, just few countries in the world does that. Thus, nearly 60 percent of Norway's export revenues derived from oil and gas sales, the rest mostly from seafood, electricity, aluminum and weapons.

Is interesting to see that only the 15 percent of the export revenues are generated by manufactured goods, that is due to the fact that in Norway the labor costs are very high.

Is worth mentioning the Irish case as well, where the trade surplus is fueled largely by multinational firms that set up production sites in Ireland because of tax advantages; in the years when the crisis was eating up the society, the policies implemented together with the trade-agreements where the keys for boosting the exports income at a time when Ireland's own domestic economy suffered a downturn that led to reduced imports. It is said that Ireland's trade surplus doesn't necessarily boost its own revenues or economy, benefiting immigrant workers. That will be something to prove in these days post financial crisis.

So the reflective questions that arise are like, can trade be good to all the countries making agreements? are countries entering trade agreements allowed or encourage to sell more and buy less? In other words, to really benefit from the trade-agreements, to develop policies, strategies, markets to the betterment of the nations, to focus on what you do better, despite the global pressures/tendencies.

That´s the idea on which the focus should be placed: fairness on the agreements, promote trade-agreements always considering the idea that should benefit all parties involved.

By Felipe Díaz (news notes taken from Views and News from Norway, The Economist and Aftenposten)

also published at: http://inspirerende.wordpress.com/2010/04/13/trade-is-good/

Final Remarks WTO Geneva

I agree with many of the reports that states that no great things were accomplished in this meeting, a no-surprises ‘housekeeping’ exercise is the descriptive remark.

Many smiles, nice speeches and it could be said an openness to dialogue (flexibility on the negotiations is not on the table). So the negotiations will have to see significant progress over the next few months, in fact March is spoken as the date to show progresses. Since the Ministers agreed that the round should reach conclusions, and things were set for it we should keep monitoring the development of these issues and the upcoming agreements.

The goal of stopping the Negotiations for a 5 year period was not achieve, but by delaying the processes the results are somewhat satisfactory. The question is, if the negotiations did not reach a forward point into concluding the DOHA round, exactly what was discuss among the Ministers and inside the particular meetings?

The meeting had proven that two of the ‘pillars’ of the WTO - implementation and dispute settlement - are working fine, the Minister of Chile said “they are alive and well,” even if the third pillar, the negotiations, is struggling a bit. It seems indeed that closed doors meetings or “bilateral talks” were much more than expected and the field of work for this Conference.

One of the many nice speeches was given by Jonas Gahr Støre, Norwegian Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Here is the link to hear the speech:

http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/minist_e/min09_e/min09_statements_e.htm#nor

Something interesting was that seemed obvious that the Minister knew that this round and the WTO negotiations have a direct impact on the Climate Issues. But nothing was done or discuss towards that aspect. Leaving everything to the Summit held in Copenhagen.

Also publish on:

http://inspirerende.wordpress.com/2010/01/03/wto-meeting-conclusion/

Working with the Delegations

I come from the Dominican Republic, where it seems that the way of managing the relations between the Third sector and the First sector (NGO´s and Government) is very similar to the other Latin American countries and most of the Less-Develop Countries (LDC) Thus, having the experience of participating in this WTO Conference confirmed that to me.

For the other half of the coin, there are the relations between the Civil Society institutions and the State´s entities in the High-Income Countries tending to be in an opposite direction than to the LDC experiences and with similarities among them.

The specific case I lived was the confrontation of the relations between the Official Norwegian Delegation (OND) and the Official Dominican Delegation (ODD) with the NGO´s.

There are 3 main things to highlight.

From the very beginning I got surprised by the first item of the Norwegian NGO´s agenda: To meet with the OND at their offices in Geneva.

On top of that, there were some people from the NGO´s working closely with the OND in almost all meetings.

And on the second day all the Norwegian NGO´s had a meeting (quick but 1) with the OND to talk directly to the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

These 3 issues didn’t seem to surprise the Norwegian NGO´s too much (at least not that obvious, or as it was for me)

In the other hand, for the Dominican side, things were a bit different.

The names and institutions of the representatives to come to Geneva were never clear, not to the Dominican NGO´s network or in the State Press and Communications Office. I tried to contact the only NGO that was listed to participate, but didn´t got any answer and at the end they did not came (anyway it was a Sindical Union which is known to be too much on the government side and not on the workers side)

Wandering a bit in the hallways I could distinguish a familiar Spanish accent and immediately I approached them. Indeed they were part of the ODD. We talked for a little while and with some friendly efforts they agreed on having their breakfast together with me on the next day.

The meeting had a few interesting or surprising points to highlight, at the end I realized they didn´t expected me to be interested in the matters of the country with the WTO, in fact they confessed to be expecting from the meeting some tips and ideas on moving around Geneva and Europe. I shared some smiles and cheap talk to get along that flow and then get space to my questions.

I meet 4 people, although they told me in the Delegation they were 5, a mysterious fifth that I never meet, heard about or got any answer when inquired.

Of course they didn´t knew of any NGO coming from Dominican and assure that the entire Delegation was just 5 persons.

Finally they said that the Delegation did not to have any Plan, Mission, Goal or Strategy towards this WTO Conference Meeting, they just came, and I quote: “to see what was happening in the World and to get updated on the international flows and ideas”

Later I got the information from the Conference Registration that from Dominican 18 persons were in the list to come. How many did come or any names, was not a public information -I was told.

So, for me to see the way that the Norwegian NGO´s work with the OND was very satisfactory, perhaps even this level of work this is not enough. Influence, pressure and more access is still needed to achieve better goals. But, for other countries/NGO´s Networks this level of cooperation is a dream.

Is now interesting to know how this was achieved and how it is maintained. Via Media? Newspapers and TV? Public campaigns, lobbying?

Anyway is nice to see it here in Norway, it will be nicer to know how to implement this or something similar in other countries/societies and also how to improve it here to reach greater levels of cooperation.

WTO Geneva: Diary entry for Wednesday 2nd December

Third and final day of the Conference. Last efforts and usage of the last reserves of energies! Everyone was looking forward to all things the day could offer!

The morning briefing meeting with the OWINFS network is the by-now usual way of starting the day, we prepared the strategy for the day, the stunt actions ideas to focus on and meetings to follow.

Then we went to the Seminars happening in the different buildings, like the Symposium on [NAME] where the seminar on “Market improvement for LDC from the Doha round” was held. This symposium was interesting for all the organizations present thete, it became a great space to meet people, gather information and get interesting details about negotiations that happen or o-the-way.

After we came back to the NGO Center where conferences about the NAMA and “Decent work in the South” were taking place.

Right after we moved back to the Symposium to participate in the seminar “Latin America and the WTO: current and future scenarios”, the main arguments presented there were the role of Latin American countries should be assigning to their bargaining strategy at the Doha Round in the WTO. Which so far, has being somewhat a residual role in the economic and trade policymaking; in this multilateral arena, Latin America has shown relative lack of interest for WTO liberalization proposal. It was argued that this is mostly due to a concrete interest for preferential trade agreements and unordinary commodity prices which sums a much larger list of benefits than the WTO negotiations proposals.

This was an interesting perspective to contrast with the “common” arguments about LDC (Latin American countries included) were the arguments are that WTO proposal are taken like uncontested recipes.

Mari had to leave early In the afternoon, I manage to meet again with the Dominican delegation in the hallways and then the actions for the Closing Ceremony took place.

The day ended with the last OWINFS briefing, very interesting as well, this time especially because a strategy for the work from now on was drafted.

This is also published on:

http://inspirerende.wordpress.com/2009/12/05/wto-geneva-diary-entry-for-wednesday-2nd-december/

WTO Geneva: Diary entry for Monday 30th November

This is another official diary entry:

First day, first little getting-lost trip in the city, we pass by the famous broken chair monument, took the picture, saw the huge installations of the United Nations (Big enough to be the global headquarters of the UN) and keep moving towards the WTO Offices to do the registration process and pick up the badges.

Right after headed to the Norwegian delegation office, to meet with the Official Delegation (OD) and all the Norwegian NGO´s and Civil Society Institutions (CSI).

In this informational meeting the OD shared some of the ideas of their agenda and opened the table for questions from the people present.

It was a nice and interesting expression of transparency and cooperation. With people of deep knowledge in different issues, making the right and perhaps controversial inquiries, it all became a full exercise where the official and “normal” answers of the OD were demanded.

With that spirit we walk to the Centre International de Conferences Genève (CICG) where the Conference is being held. Strict badge checks, airport-style security procedures and then you are in the main building. But this infrastructure is just for the “real” Conference, the one were only the Official delegations can be inside the auditoriums doors, properly identified press and civil society representatives can get close and be in the halls, but not inside the auditoriums. For us there was a building right in front, where Seminars and Conferences were about to take place. These, and other venues around, are the places to exposes the ideas, policies, messages and debates that keep our institutions running on the pursue of Justice, Fairness, Development and Improvements goals in the Trade issues. I guess the main strategy is not to have seminars and conferences to justify our work and present our ideas among the same group of people, but to also and specially involve the official institutions, politicians and main actors in this play, in order to influence, create conscience, commitment, awareness and overall action.

This is one of the greatest challenges, and with the presence of the NGO´s and Civil Society Institutions, we are putting up a concrete fight for it: achieve a transparent and democratic functioning of the WTO.

In the meeting with the Norwegian delegation Aksel, the leader of The Development Fond, ask their opinion about NGO´s and CSI´s participation in the plenary sessions, it was pleasant to know that they did not see any reason for us not to be in any of the plenary sessions, but more than comforting, this confirmation from the Norwegian delegation became useful, it was during the first press conference between the WTO venue organizers and the NGO´s representatives, Aksel himself raised the comment and demand of participate in the plenary sessions supported by the Norwegian delegation. It was the only round of applause during the meeting. But it can also make us think of a proposal where each official delegation can agree on letting NGO´s and CSI´s participate, therefore the will of the plenary will allow an open, transparent and more democratic flow of the meetings.

From the program of activities we choose to attend to the Conference called “The Rights approach to trade rules”, in short there were presented different aspects on how to incorporate the Human Rights approach or perspective to Trade, with special attention to the right to food, which is an item ratified (made law) by more than 160 countries.

A briefing of the day from the O.D. to all the NGO´s and Civil Society Institutions was schedule for the end of the evening, but it was cancelled. We don´t know the reasons (yet), but as soon as we know it, we´ll let you know.

Also published on the Spire blog:

http://inspirerende.wordpress.com/2009/12/02/271/