Calling all exporters! Calling all exporters! Are you finding it difficult to export to the 15-nation European Union (EU)? Are you having difficulties with the EU?s rules of origin, which determine whether your T-shirts are entitled to GSP benefits? Do you want to export shrimps but can?t make sense of the EU?s sanitary and phytosanitary regulations?
Not to worry. Help is on the way, in the shape of – what else but a Help Desk. It is being set up by the same people who may have been threatening you with anti-dumping action or turning back, when not dumping into the sea, your container load of shrimps.
The decision to set up a Help Desk for the benefit of exporters in developing countries was announced by no less a person than the EU?s chief trade negotiator, Pascal Lamy. He made the announcement here last week, to a capacity audience of European company executives, European trade and business organizations, consultants, non-governmental organizations, and diplomats and traders from 19 developing countries. The occasion was the one-day symposium organized by the EU?s Trade Commissioner, Lamy, for the benefit of European exporters – yes, exporters. The fact is that some six years ago the European Commission, which has primary responsibility for the EU?s external trade policy, devised a strategy designed to help European exporters. At the heart of this strategy is an interactive database, which provides exporters basic information on non-EU markets, including information on sectoral and trade barriers, applied tariffs, a guide to import formalities and a stream of foreign trade statistics.
Much of the data is generated by Trade Commissioner Lamy?s own staff. This is the case, for example, of the guide to the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). But his staff is very open to complaints, queries and suggestions on issues of access to non-EU markets from European exporters. What is more, evidence of market access obstacles provided by exporters is added to the market access database.
The Trade Commissioner made this very clear in his opening remarks. ?We provide a service; you are our clients,? Mr. Lamy declared. He invited his audience to ?tell us how to do better, tell us your priorities,? adding: ?The more questions you put to us, the better our service.? The much-maligned European Commission was not a remote bureaucracy, but ?a provider of services for European business.?
Now the announcement of a Help Desk for Asian business was probably the last thing Mr. Lamy?s audience was expecting from him. It probably caught the Asian diplomats in the hall off-guard: they had come to challenge the oft-repeated claims by European exporters and European Commission officials of just how protectionist developing countries are. Instead of which here was Pascal Lamy, who had repeatedly crossed swords with India?s former commerce minister, Murasoli Maran, at the launch of the Doha Development round of trade negotiations, offering to help Indian exporters.
But the trade commissioner justified the move to set up a Help Desk on the grounds that while the share of developing countries in world trade is rising, many of them are unable to take advantage of the generous trade concessions available to them under the EU?s generalized system of preferences (GSP), for example, or Lamy?s own ?Everything But Arms? initiative in favour of the 49 least developed countries.
The Help Desk will be a part of the free, interactive market access database operated by the staff in Lamy?s Trade Directorate in the European Commission. Asian exporters presumably will be able to turn to them for help in overcoming obstacles they have encountered in their attempts to export to the 15-nation European single market. As with European exporters, the European Commission staff no doubt will help them deal with their problems, and at the same time post the obstacles encountered on the market access database, which can be accessed at http://mkaccdb.eu.int
From Commissioner Lamy?s point of view, it is essential that developing countries be given every opportunity to share fully in the benefits of world trade. He has repeatedly stressed the fact that the Doha Development round of trade negotiations in the WTO will be a success only to the extent that it is able to meet the development needs of the world?s poorest countries in particular. This is not the first time, of course, that the EU will have adopted a programme designed to help developing countries export more to its member countries. Some 30 years ago, the 9-nation European Economic Community, the predecessor to today?s European Union, had a very active programme aimed at helping exporters in developing countries. Its theoretical justification was the need to help these countries raise their export earnings by shifting from raw materials to semi-manufactured and manufactured goods. ?Trade not aid? was slogan.
It is an open question just how successful these early export promotion programmes were. European manufacturers were not altogether happy at the idea of increased competition from developing countries. When India asked for help in exporting tea in packets and teabags, some of the major European tea companies objected, and India?s request was shelved.
It remains to be seen, therefore, whether the Help Desk will be open to exporters from all developing countries. In his opening remarks the EU Trade Commissioner pointed to the need for differential treatment for developing countries. A level playing field, yes, but with a helping hand for the weaker players, was how Mr. Lamy saw it.
But his views are not fully shared by the President of the powerful, Brussels-based Union of Industrial and Employers? Confederations of Europe (UNICE), which represents more than 16 million small, medium- and large-sized European companies. UNICE, Baron Georges Jacobs told the capacity audience, ?supports initiatives which aim to provide greater benefits to developing countries, and least developed countries in particular.?
The UNICE President accepted the view that ?developing countries may need more time to implement WTO rules.? But he made it clear that the length of time accorded to them would depend ?on their overall level of development,? or ?on the level of development of their specific industries.? Limited derogations from the rules in specific cases, but ?the rules should remain the same for all,? was how the UNICE President put it. Will Indian garment exporters, for example, be entitled to seek the help of trade commissioner Lamy?s staff at the Help Desk, once it has been set up?
And if Indian exporters find that the rules of origin, under the GSP scheme, for example, are too onerous, will the Trade Commissioner take the matter up with the 15 EU member governments? He is quite ready, after all, to formulate a policy aimed at resolving a market access problem brought to him by a European exporter.
One country that clearly will not be welcome at the Help Desk is China. If there is a spectre that is haunting Europe at the start of the 21st century it is that of a China which is rapidly transforming itself into a vast factory, from which it will supply global needs for not only cheap toys and garments but also computers and mobile phones.
Not everyone sees China as a threat; for some it is an opportunity, and they are busy investing in manufacturing industry in China. But the concerns of the more vulnerable sectors of European industry were expressed in heart-felt terms, in the workshop on China, by a representative of the Turkish textile industry.
(Turkey, incidentally, enjoys duty-free and quota-free access to the EU market under the EU-Turkey free trade agreement).
What, he asked rhetorically, can European exporters do to prevent being thrown out of business by the Chinese? Perhaps India and the EU can team up to thwart Chinese plans to capture the world?s export markets. As an Indian diplomat pointed out, 40% of India?s anti-dumping activities are aimed at Chinese exports.
