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| Kathmandu, Friday May 09, 2003 Baishakh 26, 2060 |
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Nepal’s WTO
talks to begin on May 19
Upcoming negotiations likely to be final
Post Report
KATHMANDU, May 8: The next round of bilateral
negotiations and Working Party meet for Nepal’s accession into the World Trade
Organisation (WTO) is to begin on May 19. It is likely to be the final round before Nepal
obtains WTO membership.
The upcoming meet closely follows the submission
of a Consolidated Revised Offer (CRO) by Nepal to the Geneva-based WTO Secretariat that
would be distributed to all WTO-member countries.
Government sources talking to The Kathmandu Post
said that the upcoming round of talks are important. "If WTO-member countries concede
to Nepal’s revised offers and raise no objections, then the talks would be the final
one," said a government official.
Hopes of the country’s entry into the
global rule-based trading system during the fifth ministerial conference that is scheduled
to be held in Cancun, Mexico, this September run high.
The optimism partly rests on the fact that none
of the non-WTO least developed countries has become a WTO member by virtue of accession so
far. WTO members had even promised to provide poor economies with fast track accession
during the Doha meet.
Furthermore, even a high-level technical
delegation from the WTO Secretariat that had visited Nepal in the second week of April to
assess the country’s preparation for the WTO had asserted that Nepal’s accession
process, along with that of Colombia, has been more rapid than others.
Officials said that while the upcoming bilateral
negotiations are likely to focus on the issue of market access, the Working Party meet is
anticipated to broadly discuss systemic issues that encompass the legal aspects of the
global rule-based trading system.
The upcoming bilateral negotiations and the
Working Party meet is the third round of such meets. The last round of bilateral
negotiations and Working Party meet was held in Geneva in September last year.
Nepal then had carried out bilateral
negotiations with the European Union, Japan, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Canada,
India, Sri Lanka and the United States. However, other countries were also present during
the Working Party meet.
Negotiating countries then had raised a number
of queries and clarifications in systemic issues and sought broader and deeper commitments
to market access. Nepal had made necessary revision and communicated the revisions to the
negotiating countries.
The revision had been made especially on two
fronts: binding tariff and opening up of service sector to global players. Negotiating
countries had raised objection over the difference in the binding tariff proposed by Nepal
and the applied tariff.
Likewise, the WTO member countries had also
asked Nepal to open up more service sectors, against the initial offer of only three. In
the revised offers, Nepal had scaled down the binding tariff offer to some extent and had
proposed to negotiate on 25-30 service sub-sectors.
Officials talking to The Kathmandu Post said
that if WTO member countries do not raise objections or queries to Nepal’s revised
offers contained in the CRO document, then Nepal’s WTO membership this year would be
certain.
However, WTO member countries then had asked
Nepal to abide by a number of agreements, which are not mandated by the WTO to be imposed
on least developed countries. Nepal has been declining to accede to such agreements.
Some of such agreements relate to information
technology and government procurement, including the adoption of chemical and textile
chemical harmonization processes.
The upcoming round of formal and informal
negotiations will also take up all issues deferred or remained unresolved during the
second round of bilateral and multilateral negotiations.
In addition, Nepal is likely to ask the WTO
member countries for technical and financial assistance to enhance its capacity so that it
would be able to survive and meet all obligations under the WTO framework.
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