Agriculture; Service; Non-Agricultural Market Access; Dispute Settlement Understanding; WTO Rules (Antidumping, Subsidies and Countervailing Measures including Fisheries Subsidies and Regional Trading); Trade and Environment (Relationship between MEAs and WTO; procedures for exchange of information between MEA Secretariats and relevant WTO Committees and the criteria for the granting of observer status; and market access on environmental goods and services); and TRIPS (system of notification and registration of GIs for wines and spirits).

During the Doha Ministerial Conference, there was no decision as to whether there would be negotiations on Singapore Issues (Trade and Competition Policy, Trade and Investment, Transparency in Government Procurement and Trade Facilitation). Although Doha Ministerial Declaration fixed a time frame for conclusion of negotiations, no agreement was reached on any of the issues before July 2004. The Cancun Ministerial Conference held in 2003 during the mid-term review could not also reach consensus. It is only in July 2004, in a special meeting of the General Council, the WTO Members reached an agreement to make a breakthrough in the negotiation process and agreed on a road map on how to proceed with negotiating mandate. The Decision of the General Council, which is widely known as "July Package" basically drew a road map to eliminate export subsidy in agriculture, reduce domestic support and market access barrier in agriculture and initiate negotiations in trade facilitation dropping other three issues: Trade and Competition Policy, Trade and Investment, Transparency in Government Procurement from the Doha Development Agenda. There was as such no agreement on other negotiating agenda in the July Package.

Development since July 2004
Since the adoption of the July Package, negotiations continued to be held on the agenda. In agriculture, a number of issues, such as final date of elimination of export duty and its rate of reduction, formula for reduction of tariff, formula for reduction of domestic support etc. are to be settled. However, until May 2005 discussions were held only on the approaches towards conversion of non-ad valorem duties to ad valorem duties. It was agreed in the July package that the LDCs would not be required to make any reduction commitment.

As of May 2005, the total number of initial offers presented is 52 representing 74 members. Some 40 offers remain outstanding not including the least developed countries. Bangladesh has not submitted either any request or any offer list.

The July Package recognizes the importance of adoption of a formula approach in Market Access for Non-Agricultural Products (NAMA). There was an agreement that all non-ad valorem duties would be converted into ad valorem duties. It was also agreed that the LDCs would not be required to participate either

in formula approach or in sectoral approach. However, they are expected to substantially increase their level of binding commitments. There is a call for duty-free and quota-free access for the LDCs but without any commitment. Discussion on NAMA is moving towards adoption of a Swiss-type non-linear formula approach for tariff reduction. Discussions on other issues, such as non-tariff barriers, sectoral approaches are moving forward. However, this will have no effect on the LDCs since the LDCs will not be required to undertake any commitment. Negotiations in other elements of Doha Development Agenda are not progressing as per

expectation considering the fact that there was an agreement to conclude negotiations by December 2006. It is to be mentioned that there is no progress in discussion on agenda pursued by the developing and least developed countries such as special and differential treatment, and implementation issues.

The next WTO Ministerial meeting is scheduled to be held in December, 2005 in Hong Kong. There is thus an urgency to reach consensus on some elements of Doha Development Agenda. The LDCs led by Bangladesh, should play a facilitating role in this regard.

It will be recalled that in the of negotiations on Doha Development Agenda, the LDCs took a proactive role on the following;

Securing, meaningful and vote on predictable market access by the WTO members in favour of the LDCs, which can be achieved through: Duty-free and quota-free access to all products of the LDCs; Incorporating duty-free and quota-free access to be provided in favour of the LDCs in the schedule of commitments in order to make them secured and predictable; Making the Rules of origin applicable for the duty-free and quota-free access realistic, simple and flexible to match the industrial capacity of the LDCs in order to make them meaningful; Exempting the LDCs' exports from antidumping, countervailing and safeguard measures.

Free access to movement of natural persons, specially unskilled and semi-skilled service providers, through elimination of all sorts of barriers to movement of natural person;

Allowing Flexibility to the LDCs in undertaking commitments and obligations in order to permit them to adopt policy to meet the development needs;

Technical assistance, including through Integrated Framework, targeted at: Development and diversification of production and export base of the LDCs; Addressing the supply side constraints; Compliance by LDCs to the SPS and TBT requirements of the exporting countries; and Trade policy capacity building.

Offsetting the negative effect due to liberalization measures to be undertaken by the WTO members.

As of May 2005, most of the developed countries except the United States have provided duty free access to all products of LDCs on autonomous basis. Such facilities have also been improved through relaxation of rules of origin. However, it is observed that no country is willing to provide such access through a binding commitment. There was no commitment in the WTO on non-application of antidumping, countervailing and safeguard measures. In the negotiations on trade in service no countries expressed their willingness to provide free access to service providers especially semi-skilled and unskilled labour.

Regarding the flexibility in undertaking commitments and obligations, it is observed that in most of the cases, WTO Members are agreeable to provide such flexibility to the LDCs. For example, it was agreed that the LDCs would not be required to make any reduction commitment both in agriculture and NAMA. In service sector, the LDCs would be required to undertake commitment only for fewer sectors and types of transactions, which will be progressive in nature in line with their development situation. However, it is noteworthy that all LDCs have liberalized their trade in goods and service beyond their commitments in the WTO.

Regarding the technical assistance, it is observed that most of the technical assistances, which are channeled through WTO technical assistance fund as well as multilateral, regional and bilateral donor agencies, are basically directed towards human resource capacity building in trade policy issues. Initiatives taken for comprehensive technical assistance through Integrated Framework (IF) did not work well. Although there is a commitment from WTO Members to provide technical assistance for diversification and strengthening the production and export base of the LDCs, TA in this direction is negligible. Regarding the measures for offsetting the negative effect of liberalisation programme, such as erosion of margin of preference due to tariff cuts, no specific proposal has been submitted to the WTO.

Bangladesh's perspective in WTO negotiations
For Bangladesh, the performance of the external sector is increasingly becoming more important, for which it is necessary to carefully observe changes in international trading system. Changes in international trading system especially in the WTO have direct bearing on the country's domestic policy. For example, any decision on tariff reduction if applied for all countries, will have direct impact on revenue collected from import duty and domestic industry and any decision on agriculture subsidy has direct bearing on our agriculture sector, the largest employer of the country's labour force.

As of now, Bangladesh bound its tariffs on agriculture products at 200% barring 13 and some other products such as wheat, cheese, milk powder, black tea, rice etc. which are bound at 15 percent, 30 percent, 45 percent and 50 percent. In non-agriculture sector Bangladesh made commitment to reduce its tariffs only on 146 products, which cover only 3 percent of total non-agricultural products. As of now, Bangladesh is allowed to provide domestic support to Agriculture upto 10 percent of value of total agricultural products and export subsidy on non-agricultural products. Bangladesh had to eliminate quantitative restrictions on all products including textiles under an obligation of the WTO. In service sector, Bangladesh made commitment in two sectors: five star hotels and telecommunication service. Bangladesh will have to provide intellectual property right protection by 1 January 2006 for all products except pharmaceuticals.

Given the increasing importance of the external sector and sensitivity of WTO rules on Domestic Policy options, it is essential that Bangladesh actively participates in the Doha Development Agenda. In the run up to Hong Kong Ministerial Conference, it is essential that Bangladesh for its own agenda and in the interests of other LDCs, consider taking the following positions as well as undertake some visible activities to better reflect its position in the negotiations:

a. Bangladesh should ask for maintenance of flexibility in domestic support so as to support the agriculture sector.

b. In the negotiations on market access for non-agriculture products, Bangladesh should continue to pursue for duty-free access targeting at the market of the United States, the single largest export market of Bangladeshi products.

c. For Trade in Services, Bangladesh should continue to pursue for free access of service providers especially of semi-skilled labour;

d. The domestic service sector should be fully assessed in order to undertake commitments, in service. In this connection, importance should be given to the service sector, which would bring benefit to the country's economy.

e. Similarly, the existing trade facilitation measures should be assessed and the trade facilitation identified. At the same time, the level of commitments should be assessed so that it is in a position to undertake.

f. Bangladesh should identify the proposals, which could be considered as remedy to erosion of margin of preferences.

C. K. Hyder is Secretary-General of Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Dhaka and attended all the WTO Ministerial Conferences except the Cancun conference.