| Username |
Post |
| Noah |
Posted
on 12-Oct-03 01:04 AM
Nepal has joined the WTO despite the failure in Cancun. How will privatizing and commodifying resources of one of the poorest nation help? Is it fair to allow privatization of the vast Natural water resources that Nepal boasts of? Will this actions not infuriate the uneducated, ignorant and the poor, let alone the insurgence? How will Nepal contribute to the global economy? What are the commitments of Nepal to the WTO? On whose interests does the Ministry of Commerce enter the WTO, the Nepalese population or themselves ? Who will profit, the country or only some certain individuals? What will happen to the local economies that are owned by ordinary citizens? How will they compete against the multi-billion dollar industries? How will the "Nepalese economy" survive when all the productive asstes of the country are owned by foreigners? What will be the realm of Nepalese economy if it aims at maximizing profits of outsiders and shies away from it's own economy? Who benefits when all the social facilities, which Nepal already lack, are owned by private-profit minded owners who live thousands of miles away? What are the terms and conditions that the Nepalese govt has agreed upon? Is the Nepalese population aware of all the equations that took place? Is the govt being fair? Will the democracy be at stake when the people don't have the right to make decisions that are best for the soceity? What if the only concern of the rich multi-national, global owner is the next quaters profits, then who will care for the well-being of the nation?
If any of the answer to the questions above are doubtful, then there will have been a lot of violations. The WTO promises trade liaisons which are open, fair and free. However, the WTO and it's allies have repeatedly failed to maintain those promises and by extension, the WTO talks have always failed. If all the agreements are not fairly excercised, the Nepalese population could suffer catastrophic economic disasters. The gap between the rich and the poor could widen more. The political ineffeciency of Nepal and the hegemony of the WTO should never contradict with the culture, resources, rights, security and freedom of the citizens. It is our culture because we inherited it and it is our freedom because we earned it.
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| Bhunte |
Posted
on 12-Oct-03 02:09 PM
Noah,
I can feel the sentiment there, but would you please put yourself in the other party's shoes just for a second and see how it feels like. Suppose if you are a private party, why would you want to invest? Privatization would bring bring nothing but prosperity ultimately. It all depends on how one defines privatization.
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| deepak_bista |
Posted
on 12-Oct-03 04:55 PM
Bhunteji,
The Nepali NRN conference is not in the best interest of Nepal. These economic refugees want to reap more benefit out of a poor nation like Nepal. Why should they be given special preference by distorting international competition of FDI and FII (foreign indirect investment). To me it is a connection of more money laundering by some corrupt Nepalese and by giving some few Nepalese more privilege ala who has become rich from the rags. In fact, they should be slugged highest tax for the privilege of coming to die in the motherland. I will write an economic treatise in this subject matter later.
For now I will comment on my expertise as an installation economic Maha Guru of International Trade Policy that no Nepes have been able to understand.
The World Trade Organisation was established in 1995 following its vreation as one of the outcomes of the Uruguay Round of negotiations of the General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Gatt was very much an ad hoc organisation that dealt solely with trade in goods. The Uruguay Round sought to expand its terms of reference to include services and also intellectual property and create a more formal legal framework in which to carry out trade negotiations. By April 2000, 136 countries were members (Nepal is better not to join as it cannot afford to implement the WTO requirements, may be Nepal should join after another 30 years) of WTO. The aims of the WTO are three-fold:
* To help trade flow smoothly, in a system based on transparent rules
* To settle trade disputes between countries
* To organise trade negotiations
The WTO provides a forum for its members to reach agreements through negotiation about how international trade should beliberalised to the benefits of its members. It monitors and scrutinises trade policies in the various regions of the world and those of member countries. It also facilitates solutions to trade disputes. I think the developed world are criminals by providing lots of subsidies to their own farmers and strategic industries. Yet, they are crying foul of China by saying its Renbimbi is valued too low and through such China is exporting too much and killing its industries. I think through advanced nations subsidies poor countries' agricultural produce attracts very low price and the impact is horrendous in social and environment costs. I think the adavance nations should compensate the poorer nations for their social cost and environmental degradation. However, this will not happen in my life time.
Currently the WTO has three Agreements, which are periodically re-negotiated:
* General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade-dealing with trade in goods
* General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) dealing with trade in services
* Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual property (TRIPS) dealing with copyright, trademarks, patents, industrial designs and trade secrets
One of the stated principles of the WTO is that of non-discrimination (NRN should not be given preference). All members are conferred with Most-Favoured Nation status. If one country grants another country a special favour then all members of the WTO should receive the benefit. However, there are some exceptions to this that have been negotiated by the member countries.
In 1994 economists, at what was then GATT, estimated that the agreements could countribute between US$ 184 billion to US$ 510 billion to the world economy by 2005. From the point of view of countries like Nepal the question is how much of this trade will benefit the poor countries. Freeing up international trade and braeking down protectionist barriers exposes many of the LDCs (least developed countries) to competition that places great pressures on domestic industry and agriculture and local employment. As many LDCs lack taxpaying base tariffs on imports are an important form of government revenue (NRNs want a lot of tax holidays and also want to exploit access to loans that is soft via ADB or World Bank. However, one need to question the credibility of Nepalese shifty entrepreneurs connected with eveil kleptocratic politicians).
It should also be remebered that economic success of many MDCs (most developed countries) has occured behind protectionist barriers. The Multi Fibre Agreement of 1961 was a short-term system of quotas on cotton textiles exported by LDCs. It is still in place although the Uruguay round required that it be phased out during the next five years. Despite being advocates of free trade and putting pressure on the LDCs through organisations as the WTO and the IMF to liberalise tarde, many of the MDCs still operate tariffs and other subtle forms of non tariff barriers. Producer subsidies, and investment grants to depressed areas within trading blocks (In EU cows each cow gets about US$ 2 of subsidy per day and in Asia billions live under US $ 1 per day) such as European Union have the effect of lowering firms' cost in MDCs making their output more competitive than firms in LDCs.
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| Bhunte |
Posted
on 12-Oct-03 05:10 PM
Deepak ji,
Interested to know more about possible avenues for laundering via Nepal.
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| Bhunte |
Posted
on 12-Oct-03 05:46 PM
I mean money laundering...
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