Speech by the Foreign Minister of Brazil, Ambassador Celso Amorim, at the G-33 ministerial meeting — Jakarta, 21 March 2007.

I thank Minister Mari Pangestu and the members of the G-33 for the invitation and hospitality.

I would like to express my satisfaction that the G-33 meeting, by inviting coordinators of other groups, reinforces the unity of the developing world. I recall that the first of such meetings was held in the 2005 Hong Kong Ministerial. The G-20 meeting in Rio de Janeiro followed the same practice.

This G-33 meeting is also an important landmark. The whole WTO membership is looking at Jakarta right now. The G-33 plays a very important role in the negotiations by defending interests of developing countries which are legitimately concerned with sensitivities of subsistence and family agriculture. Brazil, which has extensive programs to support small farmers and land reform, shares those concerns.

In the Rio de Janeiro G-20 meeting, in September 2006, the message was quite clear: the developing world felt that a prompt and successful conclusion of the Doha Development Round was in its best interests. We believe that sentiment still prevails.

It is clear, for instance, that the strengthening of the multilateral trading system is essential to those with less political and economic leverage. The developing world has bleak memories of times when unilateral measures were the norm in international trade relations. Experience has shown that bilateral free trade agreements also tend to be asymmetrical and unfair, always to the disadvantage of the less developed party.

But even these systemic reasons would not justify a Round at any cost. After all, it is a "Development Round". The results of the single undertaking must benefit first and foremost the developing countries, and especially the poorest among them. The effort required must be proportionate to the economic capacity of each member. The developing countries will contribute to the Round, but leadership must come from the developed Members. Those who have more must contribute more.

There are a number of areas where developing countries could derive benefits from the current round of negotiations. They would, for instance, profit from the elimination of tariff peaks and tariff escalation in the industrial area. For some countries, benefits could also stem from commitments in services, particularly in mode 4. Improvements in the rules area would also be important.

It is in agriculture, however, that developing countries find immediate and more obvious advantages.

Domestic and export subsidies impose a heavy burden on developing countries, especially on those that have a large and poor rural population, with small scale production. These subsidies depress world and domestic prices, further impoverishing the already deprived farmer. They also take markets away from the developing country producer. The G-20 members are unanimous in demanding an end to such practices.

We find clear examples of this constrained potential in products like cotton, where the natural competitiveness of poor developing countries, notably the poorest among them, is thoroughly denied by heavy subsidization in rich countries.

The whole world is now talking about the use of biofuels and the promises they enshrine, not only in terms of a cleaner planet, but also in terms of job creation in the rural areas of developing countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. But this promise will never materialize if products like ethanol from sugar cane, or biodiesel from different sources, have to face the barriers and the huge subsidies that rich countries offer to their inefficient producers. If this is the case, the biofuel revolution will be just another missed opportunity for developing countries.

The insurmountable tariff barriers imposed by developed countries on agricultural goods are another significant source of injury to the farmer of the developing countries. Potential markets for those products in developed countries are completely sealed off. This has an impact on domestic markets of the developing country concerned, further depressing prices.

It is precisely to mitigate the effects from both these subsidies and excessive tariff and non-tariff barriers that the G-33 firmly upholds two concepts derived from the principle of special and differential treatment: special products and special safeguard mechanism. They seek to deal with aspects of livelihood, rural development and food security in developing countries. The G-20 fully subscribes to these goals.

The G-20 and the G-33 must act together. In fact, several countries belong to the two groups.

Nuances of opinion have never prevented the G-20 from framing joint positions in matters as controversial as the market access formula for developing countries. The diversity of views in the Group tends to produce solid positions, which have been generally recognized as a credible middle ground or even as the "landing zone" for several aspects of the negotiation.

If deemed appropriate, the G-20 and Brazil, in particular, stand ready to cooperate towards an equitable solution to the questions posed by SPs and SSM that would satisfy the legitimate concerns of the G-33 and still point towards a negotiated outcome in the context of a balanced agreement for the DDA as a whole.

The DG, Pascal Lamy, announced, last January, that work in Geneva was to resume. Members have been meeting in different formats, within regional or thematic groups, in the negotiating groups in Geneva, etc. Some players have also been meeting bilaterally or plurilaterally.

These bilaterals and plurilaterals have been useful in harmonizing concepts and language among negotiators. But the negotiating gaps have not been bridged.

The scope of the bilaterals is limited. There is no chance that they will ever yield results that could come close to "full modalities". This is neither desirable nor feasible, either from a technical or a political point of view.

But we need not only leadership from the major developed partners. We'll also need that the Geneva process pick up momentum.

We see that the DG is seriously working on these crucial issues. We fully support him. But the shape of the final deal, which will define whether this will truly be a "Development Round", will depend on our capacity, as developing countries, to display a united front. This is what made the advances possible in Doha itself, in the July framework, and in Hong Kong. I am fully conscious of the responsibility of Brazil, as coordinator of the G-20, to work for that unity. That is why I am particularly grateful for the opportunity that the G-33 - and Indonesia in particular - offered me today.