Long hours, hard bargaining in last day of World Trade Organisation talks

Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohammed (left) and Director General WTO Brazil's Roberto Azevedo during Tenth Ministerial Conference at Kenyatta International Convention Center on friday, Dec 18, 2015. PHOTO: JONAH ONYANGO.

Intrigues and hard bargaining characterised the WTO talks that were to conclude last evening in Nairobi, with negotiators putting in long hours to strike deals and safeguard their delegations’ interests.

To underline the gravity of the World Trade Organisation talks in Nairobi and how hard the negotiators fought to squeeze an agreeable deal on the contentious issues that remained ever so elusive, many delegates stayed up all night Thursday.

It was not until 5am that the weary-looking and red-eyed representatives decided to take a break.

Despite holding night-long discussions, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed cut a dejected figure as she told journalists that nothing much was achieved after hours of intensive “heavy lifting”.

The minister held a five-minute press conference at noon before hurriedly heading back to what had been expected to be the last stretch of the conference that was expected to be officially closed at mid-day yesterday.

But that was not to be as the talks -- that have been characterised by geo-politics, propaganda and hardline positions -- degenerated into another day-long haggling between the big powers and those from developing nations.

As the talks progressed under closed doors, exhausted delegates could be seen occasionally walking out to either stretch or for health breaks. As we went to press last evening, CS Mohamed emerged to defuse reports that India had blocked the biggest trade deal for poor countries.

Mohamed, the current chair of the ministerial conference, described the talks as “delicate” and was hopeful that a deal on the agricultural subsidies would be reached.

“The issues are mostly around export competition and the dispute is not between developed and developing countries anymore, we are getting beyond that,” said Mohamed.

Agricultural subsidies

At the start of the talks, a standoff was palpable between poor and rich countries, especially on agricultural subsidies. “We are getting to a place where we have similar interests with the developed countries,” she added in reference to the realignments of the earlier divide between the poorer and richer nations.

Should the meeting end without a deal on agriculture, then poor countries -- mostly from Africa -- will walk out of the discussions empty handed. They are looking up for an end to subsidies by rich countries that have locked them out of global trade for decades.

Kenya was hoping that the deal reached would include consensus on the date for elimination of export subsidies in agriculture. Reports had indicated that India had frustrated the talks and had fallen out with US and other rich nations.

One negotiator in the Kenyan delegation told The Standard on Saturday that little headway had been made in addressing questions on inclusion of new issues in the negotiating framework as proposed by the developed countries during Thursday night talks. The poor nations had tabled their agenda on addressing agricultural subsidies. But as morning came and the sun almost up, hardly any issues had been resolved, with the foreign negotiators heading to their hotel rooms to refresh literally before heading back to the closed-door meeting rooms.

India, which is home to a fifth of the world population, had presented a tough position in response to a growing discomfort by the US on its levels of stockpiling of basic foodstuff. “On agriculture negotiations, the facilitator has circulated three draft decisions on Export Competition, Special Safeguard mechanism and Public Stockholding Food Security Purposes,” Kenya’s head of delegation Karanja Kibicho said early afternoon, terming the issues as highly “sensitive”.

US is accusing the Indian subcontinent of building too much food reserves and in effect taking control of future commodity prices, a position it has countered by saying it was only taking the measures to ensure food security for its nearly 1.3 billion citizens. All indications were clear from earlier on Thursday, hours to the close of the four-day conference, that outstanding issues were weighty and deeply divisive.

The WTO secretariat that is housed at KICC, the conference venue, had hoped that an agreement would come well before 4pm to enable them brief reporters that were on standby. Mohamed and WTO boss Roberto Azedevo were also scheduled to hold a joint closing press conference soon after a session held to formally admit Afghanistan into the global trading body. But as the hour drew closer, the status of the scheduled press conference was thrown to doubt.

Reporters from around the world rely on the press conferences for the official positions since all negotiating sessions are exclusive to delegations only. Special badges issued to members of delegations enable security officials to ensure only negotiators are allowed to the high level talks. Until 7pm on Thursday, the planned press conference was still in doubt since the various delegations were still behind closed doors, and no official positions could be relayed. Mohamed’s press conference was put off indefinitely, while WTO’s spokesman Keith Rockwell held another at 10.30pm informing the few Western journalists who were still around the venue that no deal had been reached.

“We still have in some areas quite divergent views and positions, which prevent us from reaching consensus,” Mr Rockwell said, quoting the Agriculture Facilitator Joshua Setipa, who is also the Lesotho trade minister. The spokesman reported that some delegates had disagreed with the long phase-out periods for agricultural export subsidies, where the developed countries such as the US would be allowed four years to stop them and developing countries up to seven years. Even at that hour, talks were still ongoing with no end in sight.

Long night

It turned out to be a very long night, and day. By yesterday morning, Mohammed had projected that the talks would be concluded by noon before formal closing of the conference. But as early as 9am yesterday, it was increasingly clear that the conference would stay on well past 7pm with the negotiators in marathon of pull and push for the best possible outcome.

Sources within the negotiation teams even hinted that the talks would end by 9pm while others who were less optimistic said the negotiations would go through the night and possibly beyond this morning. The issues at the heart of the conference had not been resolved and increasingly, there was growing frustration that the Nairobi meeting might end in naught

During the briefings, CS Mohamed stayed clear of the conflicts, instead choosing to say that ‘there was nothing out of the ordinary.’

A source privy to the talks intimated that at some point, Ms Mohamed was forced to go into a closed door meeting with the main protagonists in the agriculture deal -- India, Brazil, USA and the European Union representatives.

At the end of the day, developed nations seemed to have taken a bigger control of the negotiations owing to the realignments.

PS Karanja Kibicho, who heads the Kenyan delegation, told The Standard On Saturday that he had not slept since Thursday after Mohamed’s press conference.