Make Trade Fair in the Pacific
Trade could help reduce hardship in the Pacific, but international trade rules are stacked in favour of rich countries.
Pacific governments are under immense pressure to open up their markets to goods and services from overseas yet history shows that opening up national markets too quickly or in the wrong way can increase hardship and poverty.
What trade deals are happening in the Pacific?
The Pacific is currently negotiating a potentially damaging trade deal with the European Union, an economic power over 1,400 times the size of the Pacific. Samoa and Vanuatu are attempting to join the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the body that governs international trade. Australia and New Zealand are seeking to liberalise their trade with the Pacific under another agreement called PACER.
Negotiations with the European Union
Fourteen Pacific governments are negotiating an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union (EU), a deal that Europe wants signed by the end of 2007. Pacific negotiators are seeking a deal to help improve Pacific livelihoods, but the EU is pushing for a deal that would force small Pacific businesses into competition with large, often subsidised, European competitors. The proposed agreement could stop Pacific governments from making laws that help Pacific companies and peoples, and even laws that protect the environment and local resources, or guarantee essential basic services such as healthcare, education and water provision.
Joining the World Trade Organisation
Samoa and Vanuatu are in the process of joining the WTO. Although there are benefits from being part of the body that governs world trade, these countries are being asked to make enormous concessions as the ‘price’ of entry. This is deeply unfair, as countries that had joined earlier did not have to make such large concessions. In fact, even developed countries have not had to make the same commitments as these small, developing countries are being asked to make. Existing members of the WTO are trying to protect their own interests at the expense of developing countries seeking to join. The process for these three Pacific countries has mainly been undemocratic, with the public often left completely unaware of the negotiations governments have been involved in on their behalf, or of the potential harm to their hopes for a better future.