Socialist Republic of Vietnam

THE CHICAGO CONFERENCE ON THE GLOBAL ECONOMY:

INTERVENTION BY H.E MR. TRUONG DINH TUYEN MINISTER OF TRADE OF VIET NAM CHICAGO, 15-16/9/2003


Yours Excellency Mr. Chairman!
Ladies and Gentlemen!


At the outset, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations and His Excellency Mr. Marshall M. Bouton for giving me this opportunity to participate and speak in this prestigious forum.

The globalization process, with one manifestation being the Marrakesh Agreement (embodying the results of the Uruguay Round) and the on-going Doha Round, was initiated by the developed countries to serve first and foremost their very own interests.

The developing and least developed countries had decided to participate in this process with their ultimate expectation for improved market access opportunities for their goods and services that help boost economic growth, eradicate hunger and reduce poverty.

That expectation was even further boosted when the Marrakesh Agreement provided them with the Special and Different treatment provisions.

It has been almost a decade since the establishment of the World Trade Organization. Given the modest and poor gains of developing countries from the Round, the heavy responsibility that they had to shoulder and the collapse of the Cancun Ministerial Conference, one cannot help wondering whether the Uruguay Round 10 years ago and the current Doha Round are really about development. Whether the needs and expectations of the developing countries upon accession are ever realized? There are some crystallized facts that may guide the answers.

I would just like to cite some examples:

- The present gap in the development level between the industrial countries and the agriculture-based ones could be equal to decades, if not a century, of development. However, the preferential treatment with regards to market access in terms of tariff reduction and non-tariff measures elimination schedule in most instances have been found to be no more than five years. The discrepancies among countries’ tariffs averages are not as large as expected. Meanwhile, import tariffs are still one of the major sources of budget incomes so the fast tariff cut by developing countries have led to the decrease of the financial resources. As a result, those countries fail to find adequate finance for infrastructure development, human resources training and assistance to hunger eradication and poverty reduction.

- About 70-80% of the developing and least developed countries population is living in the rural areas and relies heavily on their agricultural cultivation. The developed countries, nevertheless, maintain their agricultural protection policies via high or even outrageously high tariffs levied on the imported products and subsidies worth hundreds of billions USD – an amount exceeding the combined GDP of a large number of developing economies. Being denied the opportunities to export their agricultural products, the developing countries are estimated losing as much as 25 billion USD a years. Accordingly, they are denied the chance to import technology and equipment for developmental purposes. The dilemma at the Cancun conference was that some countries promised to reduce export subsidies and extend strengthened special and differential treatment to developing countries only for trade-off in market access and Singapore issues in return. The collapse of the Cancun Conference is understandable in this regard.

- Given the high level of development, the developed countries have managed to set up the sophisticated technical barriers that the developing countries find extremely difficult to surpass. Given those barriers, many countries, including the least developed countries, find it difficult to export their goods and services, not least the abuse of antidumping measures in a number of countries.

What should also be further noted are the double standards when it comes to the accession of new members. This is the result of the apparent lack of clear accession criteria and guidelines for acceding countries. The acceding countries, therefore, are faced with ever increasing requirements - which, in most cases, go far beyond what have been committed by the existing Members in the Uruguay Round. If, for some reasons, Contracting Parties of the GATT and their former colonies had not been able to join at the conclusion of the Uruguay Round and these new standards are applied, I guess that many countries would not become WTO Members and the WTO Membership base would be much less than the current 146.

Does all that mean developing countries are given opportunities that are commensurate with their development needs (as one may comprehend from the Preamble of the Agreement Establishing the WTO)? The appalling fact is that low-income countries that account for 40% of the world’s population only account for 3% of international trade, and the income gap between rich and poor countries is actually widening.

It is true that a fair trading system and the special and different treatment for developing countries alone do not suffice the active and effective participation of these countries in the highly globalized world economy. These countries should also exert its own efforts in policy and structural reforms. However, a fair trading system that incorporates appropriate special and differential treatment for developing countries with clear and binding rules is undeniably a necessary condition that is conducive to development.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Being a low-income developing country that has to simultaneously face the difficulties of transition, Viet Nam is making its bid to accede to the WTO. In this process, many of the so-called “double standards” or “WTO plus” requirements are also applied to Viet Nam.

Viet Nam’s accession may and should conclude early so that Viet Nam is no longer sidelined by this universal organization. That, however, may only happen if the developed Members of WTO refrain from imposing excessive conditions on Viet Nam.

On our side, taking the achievements of the reforms in the last 15 years as momentum, Viet Nam has been actively fine-tuning the legal system, improving the economic and trade policies with a clear understanding that it is being done for our own good. At the same time, this direction will also serve as a requisite condition for a meaningful leap in the accession negotiations destined for the end of the year.

Mr. Chairman,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

On the long way from Hanoi to Chicago, I had time to contemplate over two interesting papers. One tells about the formation of the United States of Americas and the other is an Oxfam’s paper about how “the law of the jungle” was applied to one of the world’s poorest countries.

These documents gave me considerable foods for thought just by contrasting the two stories. The Great US President George Washington and those who shared his unshakable belief were able to listen to poorer and weaker states and to reconcile the divergent, sometimes even conflicting interests to agree on the historic Constitution in 1789 that ensured the union within diversity of a vast country with many ethnic and cultural identities.

Now after more than 200 years, the developed countries, however, seem not to be able to repeat that. Has diversion in cultural identities been accorded sufficient consideration? Will the imbalances that accrued from the Uruguay Round be sufficiently addressed in the Doha Round? The impasse of the just-concluded Cancun Ministerial Conference may provide a good hint for the answer.

Some may well consider that I am comparing oranges to apples. Yes, it is true that no comparison can be perfect. Yet it could also be truer that the globalization process is far from perfect.

I thank you for your kind attention and would be indeed much honored to listen to your versatile comments!