PAKISTAN: Actionaid report "Taking the fish"

During this holiday period I have done a little bit of desk research on NGO positions' on the WTO Doha negotiations relating to fishing issues.

Yesterday I came accross a report prepared by the charity "Actionaid" in the framework of its "Trade justice" campaign. According to Actionaid:

"The report - Taking the Fish – claims poor fishing communities in developing countries worldwide could be devastated by moves to open up fishing markets as part of the latest World Trade Organisation talks.

Pakistani fisher groups say trawlers from China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan already encroach on their local waters and use giant fishing nets to scoop up and deplete fish stocks under Pakistan’s policy of opening up its waters to international fleets."

On page 6 the reader will find a section titled "WTO threat". I copy here under its contents:

"WTO threat

Serious new threats to further liberalise fishing trade in developingcountries and open up fisheries services sectors to foreigncompetition are emerging in the currentWTO global trade talks.WTO negotiations underway on subsidies and non-agriculturalmarket access (or NAMA) could:

(i) completely eliminate all tariffs in the fish and fish productssector (as has been proposed by Canada, Iceland, New Zealand,Norway, Singapore and Thailand)

(ii) significantly reduce tariffs in all sectors, including fish and fishproducts, if an agressive tariff-cutting 'Swiss formula' is applied toall industrial and natural resource sectors (the extent of such cutsis currently the focus of negotiations within the WTO)

(iii) discipline fishing subsidies in poor countries through on-goingtalks in the WTO Negotiating Group on Rules.

While the NAMA and subsidies negotiations have beenhighlighted, new moves to effectively ‘lock in’ essentially irreversible commitments to liberalise ‘services incidental to fishing’are now also being made in the currentWTO GATSnegotiations."

Here is the link to the page of the website of Actionaid where the report is presented:

http://www.actionaid.org/main.aspx?PageID=573