Brazil´s foreign minister explains the importance of G-20 for the developing world

Two months have gone by since the inconclusive interruption of the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) ministerial conference in Cancún, Mexico.

The formal outcome of the meeting - a short final communiqué instructing member states to continue working at the technical level in Geneva, and convening a General Council meeting by December 15 - aimed to keep the negotiations alive.

Having failed to put us back on track towards the realisation of the Doha development objectives, this seemed to be the best that Cancún could aim for.

For countries such as Brazil, eager to benefit from the reduction of trade barriers and the elimination of distortions to resume economic growth, the lack of results in Cancún remains a true disappointment.

But Cancún cannot be viewed exclusively as a lost opportunity, even if, two months on, the negotiating process has yet to resume at a satisfactory pace.

This state of semi-paralysis can be attributed to different causes, but from our perspective one factor stands out.

The truth is that neither during the conference, nor since then, has the joint position on agriculture between the two major trading players found sufficient support to be accepted as the basis for consensus.

Cancún can thus be seen as a turning point, the event that saw the developing world assume an affirmative role in support of trade liberalisation, through a proactive exercise in co-ordination, which I had the honour to chair, in upholding the Doha mandate for agriculture.

This article will not attempt to produce a detailed assessment of the dynamics at Cancún.

Nevertheless, let me mention that apart from the novelty of the co-ordination among the 20-plus developing countries on agriculture, quite remarkably, several least-developed African countries managed to put the issue of cotton subsidies on the agenda.

Few developed-country delegates would have anticipated the disastrous

consequences of their lack of sensitivity towards the issues raised by Burkina Faso, Chad, Benin and Mali, which led to the rejection of proposals on the Singapore issues by the least-developed countries. (The Singapore issues are investment, competition, transparency in government procurement and trade facilitation.)

Let me turn to the group we call the G-20, in which South Africa and Brazil played a central role. The G-20's unifying purpose was to live up to the Doha Round's core issue: agriculture.

One month before the conference, the US and the European Union arrived at

an understanding on agriculture which, instead of upholding the parameters set forth in the Doha Declaration, sought to protect their respective national

regimes while promoting only minor reforms.

Member states from different parts of the developing world quickly realised that the acceptance of such a proposal would have frustrated their ambition to establish a level playing field for competitive agricultural producers - expectations that constituted the very raison d´être for launching the Doha Round.

For understandable reasons, some of the members of the Cairns Group - which brings together developed and developing countries with a special interest in agriculture - decided to keep a low profile.

Brazil, Argentina and India established a core group that articulated a platform designed to bring negotiations into conformity with the Doha objectives. The group was joined by several additional members, including South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, China and other Asian countries, Mexico and most of South America.

By the end of the Cancún conference, the group´s membership represented more than 20 percent of the world's agricultural world´s agricultural gross domestic product and 65 percent of the rural population.

The group was concieved from the very start as an open, informal and inclusive gathering of like-minded delegations.

United by a common desire to correct distortions and dismantle a regime designed to protect inefficient producers in the developed world, the group included both an offensive platform - of special interest to exporters penalised by high import barriers and by the unfair competition created by production and export subsidies - and a deffensive platform designed to offset the most serious market distortions caused by the major players` subsidy programmes.

The coincidence between the group´s objectives and those of the WTO itself deserve to be highlighted. Indeed, the fact that a group of developing countries took the lead in upholding free and fair trade at a WTO meeting may be seen as a historical landmark.

While the group did not succeed in promoting consensus on the basis of its joint platform, its relative weight and sound technical foundation did manage to submit the proposals by the two major participants to intense scrutiny.

A regrettable lack of understanding of the group´s constructive role led to a bizarre campaign to discredit it. To a large extent, the ideas defended by the group matched those defended, until recently, by current critics.

Two months on, the core of the developing countries with a strong stake in the success of the Doha Round of agricultural talks - including Brazil, South Africa, Argentina, India and China - continue to maintain close co-ordination.

The post-Cancún consultation process has confirmed the group´s strengh as an essential actor in the search for convergence - a force representing widely shared interests in both the developing and developed world.

The G-20 remains an open-ended, result-oriented mechanism of co-ordination - no need to fill out membership forms to participate in its deliberations.

Interestingly, even some of those who chose not to be nominally associated with the group have signalled their interest in continuing to base their participation in the agricultural talks on the G-20 proposals.

I repeat: the G-20 remains committed to the success of the Doha Round, within its prescribed time frame.

South Africa's Trade and Industry Minister Alec Erwin was correct in declaring to the Financial Times that the Doha Round "will start moving". Indeed, we have no better choice, lest we contemplate weakening the WTO as a serious alternative.

It is my belief that the round can still be successfully concluded on January 1 2005 as originaily agreed if, as soon as possible, we resume discussions on agriculture, on the basis of the proposals put on the table in Cancún - and if we do not overburden our agenda with issues that are clearly not ripe for negotiations, such as some of the so-called Singapore issues.

Brazil and South Africa have worked hand in hand at the WTO. But beyond this close association at the multilateral level, Brazil´s partnership with South Africa is reflected in a wide bilateral agenda of co-operation and on a mutual desire to strengthen ties between our two regions, through the current talks on a fixed preference agreement between Mercosur and the Southern African Customs Union. This inter-regional project is a step towards a future free-trade agreement.

During his recent visit to Pretoria President Luíz Inacio Lula da Silva had the occasion to reaffirm to President Mbeki Brazil´s commitment to a closer relationship with South Africa.

Motivated by a common commitment to development with social justice, and determined to preserve and strenghen the multilateral trading system, Brazilians and South Africans unite their voices to render the WTO more democratic and receptive to the developing world´s aspirations for equitable and fair trade.