BALI, Indonesia- The Asia Pacific Research Network (APRN) organized a Research Conference on Trade and Development on March 20-21 in Bali, Indonesia. The conference is APRN’s contribution to strengthening the critique on the neoliberal trade agenda being forwarded by the WTO. It is also aimed to contribute to raise the awareness and capacities of people’s movements in the region and beyond on campaigning around WTO and trade liberalization.

20 years of WTO: Country Impacts

Mr. Sonny Africa, Executive Director of Ibon Foundation said that the WTO’s ‘achievements’ for the past 20 years include locking in previous trade liberalization, hammering new liberalizing agreements in agriculture, services, investments and intellectual property rights, and instituting the dispute settlement mechanisms which allowed foreign investors to sue the governments of developing countries on measures that are deemed to be protective of their national industries.

The Asia Pacific Research Network (APRN) conducted a Research Conference on Trade and Development on March 20-21 in Bali, Indonesia.  Although the title is broadly on trade and development, the conference focused on how the World Trade Organization (WTO) and neoliberal trade shaped the economies of developing countries. The main objectives of the research conference are to update on the impacts of the WTO and trade liberalization, to explore the possible implications of a new agreement in the Bali Ministerial and develop policy proposals for trade regime that will serve the people.

Country-level research papers from China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan and Philippines presented the impacts of WTO and trade liberalization to their economy and the people as well as the possible implications of a new agreement.

The 16 Round of Negotiations in the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal is taking place in Singapore, from 4-13 March 2013. Three more talks are expected this year before the trade agreement is concluded in time for the APEC Summit in Indonesia in October.

What is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)?

The Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement is a proposed regional free trade agreement (FTA) being negotiated among the United States, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. U.S. negotiators and others describe and envision the TPP as a “comprehensive and high-standard” FTA, presumably because they hope it will liberalize trade in nearly all goods and services and include commitments beyond those currently established in the World Trade Organization (WTO). It has been dubbed as the “gold standard deal of the 21^st century” and is seen as a move by the US to bypass the slow-moving negotiations in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and create a platform for a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP).