The WTO XI Ministerial meeting will be held in Buenos Aires Argentina. Although the Agricultural Agenda is very relevant for the region, it has not made much progress. The significant results achieved in Bali and Nairobi are not sufficient to ensure "effective access" to agricultural commodity markets. Even this occurs in a context where trade will become increasingly relevant to ensure food security in many countries of the globe in the coming years. In view of this, the private sector of the Southern Cone proposes to advance in the pending issues, as well as to incorporate new issues to reduce distortions and facilitate access to markets. With the stagnation of the WTO agenda, many countries focused their market access strategy on implementing FTAs. However, this is not a viable strategy from the point of view of promoting development at a global level, since tariff reductions were observed between countries that formed trade agreements, this indirectly eroded the tariff preferences of third markets, in many cases, least developed countries.
Even the signing of FTAs is risky for the signatory countries, since it is generally necessary to grant more concessions than in a multilateral negotiation. In addition, in a bilateral agreement, bargaining power depends on the specific weight of each country and the existing institutional framework to support the agreement in each case.
Therefore, the FTAs seem not to be the most adequate response to face the existing trade barriers and to promote a development agenda that reaches all the countries of the globe. Given this certainty, the claim of progress in the negotiation on "effective market access" (including the SPS and TBT Agreements) is legitimate and must necessarily be discussed at the negotiating table.
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