HONG KONG - The UAE remains flexible to examine all proposals on the WTO table of negotiations with the aim of adopting solutions that are acceptable and mutually satisfactory for all, according to Shaikha Lubna Al Qasimi, UAE Minister of Economy and Planning.
"Concerning the sectoral component, the UAE has submitted a proposal on raw materials including that of primary aluminium. We consider this initiative as a salient example of co-operation and convergence between the interests of both developed and developing countries in the WTO," she said at the sixth ministerial conference of the World Trade Organisation being held in Hong Kong from December 13-18.
"It is a win-win proposal given the fact that duty-free raw material is essential for the competitiveness of developed countries' manufacturing businesses, while the same materials considered part of the strategic exports and emerging industries of the developing countries,'' she told the delegates.
For the UAE, she added, the elimination of all duties on primary aluminium constitutes a strategic objective and "we therefore wish that due consideration will be given to our sectoral initiative."
She explained that "we remain convinced that participation in sectoral initiatives shall be on a voluntary basis so as to provide necessary and legitimate flexibilities allowing developing countries to pursue industrialisation policies that are supportive of their development goals."
"Services negotiations are also a key issue for the UAE. We submitted our offer in July 2005. We have considered all requests from WTO members in drafting our offer, and it clearly improves our current commitments,'' she remarked, adding "we look forward to a mutually beneficial partnership between our domestic services industry and international service providers. We also stress that the agreed guidelines and procedures for the negotiations in services continue to remain the benchmark of the negotiations."
Shaikha Lubna noted that negotiations, since the Doha development agenda was launched four years ago to date, had demonstrated the existence of major differences between members but that needs to be changed.
She warned that "by analysing the current state-of-play of the negotiations, it is clear that there is no sufficient level of convergence among members on the level of ambition in the key areas of negotiations. "Consequently, we agree with the approach of recalibrating expectations, and considering this ministerial conference as an intermediate stage before we go to the full modalities phase." She suggested "to deliver consensual outcomes, we need to agree on a positive connotation of the proportionality which might be needed across the key areas of negotiations, namely agriculture, NAMA and services. All of us agree that agriculture is the key that can unlock the negotiations."
