PRESS RELEASE

August 6 , 2008

Rice NGO presses on coherent agriculture and industrial trade policy
in WTO, regional and bilateral trade agreements

Rice Watch and Action Network (R1) urges agriculture and trade and industry officials to come up with a coherent trade negotiations policy in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and other trade agreements that the country will engage into.

The group also criticizes the conflicting messages of government officials at the WTO negotiations in Geneva and that of Secretary Peter Favila and Secretary Arthur Yap here in Manila.

"We laud our agriculture officials in Geneva who fought tooth-and-nail for the safety nets against agriculture trade liberalization, despite the absence of Secretary Yap," said Jessica Reyes-Cantos, R1 lead convenor.

The Doha Development Round of negotiations failed last week in Geneva reportedly over disagreement on the Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM). SSM allows developing countries to increase their agricultural tariff rates to protect local industries against massive importation.

Cantos said chief trade negotiator Secretary Favila did not help our agriculture negotiators in Geneva when he issued a public statement favoring the signing of the deal early on, even as the safety nets in agriculture and industries are not even discussed yet during the week of negotiations.

"How do you expect our counterparts in the WTO and other trade negotiations to seriously consider our bargaining positions when some of our officials are willing to take any deal for our supposed offensive interests, even at the expense of more sustainable local development?" Cantos lamented.

The group earlier urged Secretary Yap and Secretary Favila to stop from signing a deal in the WTO due to the disappointing offers on agriculture, fisheries and the industry as well as services sectors as these were laid down during the week of negotiations on July 21-25,
2008.

Cantos speaks in the forum organized by R1, fisheries group Tambuyog and Alliance of Progressive Labor today. The forum invited Secretary Yap and Secretary Favila to explain the implications of the failure of the Doha Round on the local economy and define the course of trade
policies in trade negotiations that are in the offing.

"The fuel and food crises should serve as a wake up call for the government. High prices of rice in the world market proved to be a bane for our country when we chose to open our economy to the world's liberalized trade regime," said Cantos.

R1 calls on the government to develop the agriculture, fisheries and industry sectors and provide the necessary production support to allow poor and marginalized people in these sectors, somehow stay afloat even under a just and fair trade regime.

"Our government's trade negotiations need coherence as the last WTO Mini-Ministerial Meeting showed that each major sector was left to fend for each own while no one is really looking at the whole picture,” Cantos said.
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