Hong Kong

Antigua and Barbuda's Minister of Finance and the Economy, Dr. the Honourable Errol Cort, led a slate of ministers and representatives from the Caribbean region, including Belize, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis and St Vincent and the Grenadines, in addressing the plenary of the WTO Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong.

Minister Cort's address comes at a time when trade ministers from 149 countries and customs territories are trying to salvage a partial agreement aimed at, among other things, cutting taxes on poor countries' exports, liberalizing trade in cotton, ending agricultural export subsidies and linking lower tariffs for manufactured goods to lower tariffs for agricultural products. It also comes at a time when a particularly acrimonious dispute has broken out over the extent to which countries should be required to let foreign competitors into their markets for services like banking, telecommunications, hospital management and computer programming.

In his statement to the plenary, Minister Cort began by responding to the challenge of the Director General of the WTO, Pascal Lamy, who called on WTO members to be prepared to take some risks; to improve the rules; and to level the playing field in the quest for free and fair trade and to preserve development at the heart of the Doha Round.

"Antigua and Barbuda has heard and heeded [Director General's] battle cry and I hereby reaffirm our commitment to work assiduously to address the issues at hand. I do so secured in my belief that the Doha Development Round provides Members of the WTO with an opportunity to make trade an essential tool for economic growth and development," said Minister Cort.

The Minister noted that in order for the twin island nation to benefit fully from trade that it needed to put in place the necessary structures to nurture the seeds of economic growth and development. He also noted that his government had embraced a path of macro-economic and social reform; introduced fiscal consolidation; taken steps to reduce the deficit while establishing an efficient tax system; established a priority public sector investment programme; created an enabling environment for the private sector to flourish; introduced social protection of the most vulnerable in our society; and had embarked on a programme of legal reform.

"My government's goal is to increase Antigua and Barbuda's attractiveness as a place to do business, with good governance and transparency as the building blocks of the programme. Concomitant with this are ongoing efforts to reduce economic vulnerabilities, eliminate barriers to competitive global trade and investment, increase competitiveness in the private sector, improve domestic employment, and enhance our capacity for sustainable growth in the face of external circumstances," he said.

The Minister also sought to underscore the unique concerns of the nation's economy, which he characterized as "small, vulnerable, [and] highly open," and which he said would "… require flexibility and policy space for implementing the provisions and commitments of various WTO agreements."

He also noted that an economy such as ours needs "…longer transitional periods for implementation [of these agreements] and fair market access for [its] products and services," and expressed alarm at "the prospect that [the country] could be forced into liberalization of tariffs without a suitable timeframe and without the necessary flexibility to institute and complete needed tax reforms…"

Touching on the all-important issue of services, Minister Cort said that "…Antigua and Barbuda's services export in value terms was in the order of 900 to1. Services today contribute over 80% to our Gross Domestic Product. Given our relatively smaller manufacturing and agricultural base, the services negotiations are extremely important for Antigua and Barbuda, since the services sector present one of the greatest opportunities for economic progress in this the Doha Development Round."

The Minister concluded by noting that in order for there to be any progress in the negotiations on services, "…all WTO Members [will need] to make quality offers that address constructively the requests of trading partners in a commercially meaningful way. Major trading nations must lead by example through the offers that they make, thus allowing others to commit further for the mutual benefit of all. In the same vain, we must also preserve the individual right of countries' to regulate domestic sectors in accordance with international best practices in pursuit of their own developmental goals."

With less than a day to go, the prospects for a successful outcome --while not entirely clear -- have improved dramatically with the release by the Chairman of the Conference of a revised draft Ministerial Text. This revised text, a product of the previous three days of negotiations, will be discussed by ministers from the wider Caribbean region, which in the WTO context is known as CARIFORUM and includes the member States of CARICOM plus Cuba and the Dominican Republic. The goal of these discussions is to forge a common CARIFORUM position ahead of the final round of negotiation.

The Ministerial Conference is schedule to be end on Sunday afternoon.