SA has a pivotal role to play to help forge a developmental trade pact out of protracted multilateral negotiations, UK Trade Minister Gareth Thomas said yesterday.

The Doha development round is at a crucial stage as trade ministers get ready to meet in Geneva on 21 July to thrash out a deal on two key issues holding up the deal — agricultural subsidies and tariffs, and industrial market access.

The Doha round, which has been under negotiation for a marathon seven years, is at a critical stage. With the US in an election year and a change at WTO leadership level in the offing for next year, multilateral talks would likely only resume within 18 to 24 months if a deal was not clinched now, Thomas said. "If we don't secure a deal on the headline issues now, we''re not likely to get one in the next three years, if at all."

The failure to secure a deal could see the loss of market access improvements that had already been secured, undertakings made on the phasing down of agricultural support while 98 percent of duty-free, quota-free access that had already been secured under previous negotiation could be undermined, he said.

The UK permanent under secretary of state for trade and consumer affairs is in SA as part of a ministerial delegation attending the SA-UK Bilateral Forum meeting.

Thomas heaped most of the responsibility for greater movement on the US, saying it had much more to do on cutting trade-distorting farm support to help facilitate the birth of a deal.

He also urged SA to come to the table with concessions on industrial market access, urging greater flexibility from the Nama 11 — a group of major trading nations including India, Brazil and SA, that are obliged to make an offer on nonagricultural, or industrial, market access.

"We do need to see flexibility from the Nama 11. While it is a development round we still need to see all participating blocs say that they''ve gained some increase in market access if this deal is to be done," he said.

Inequality was also set to increase

Thomas said that the world was facing the biggest restructuring of economic life since the industrial revolution, and this presented massive opportunities. However, inequality was also set to increase.

"The response to that inequality for some is that we should resort to protectionism. My reaction is that that would be a mistake, because it would leave those who can't participate even further behind," he said.

While home to 700-million people, sub-Saharan Africa's share of global trade was equivalent to that of Belgium's, a country smaller than the Free State, and a fairer trading system, both in terms of north-south but also south-south trade relations was needed, Thomas said.

He urged greater emphasis on regional integration to increase intra-Africa trade by, among others, removing barriers to trade and improving trade facilitating infrastructure and customs efficiencies, and developing crucial skills.

He said SA had a key role in finalising the economic partnership agreement negotiations under way between the EU and the Southern African Customs Union (Sacu) plus Mozambique and Angola.

Business Day