WTO Pacific rep Sisilo leads the campaign.

Samisoni Pareti
New Zealand has agreed to consider the interests of Pacific islands nations as the World Trade Organisation is being lobbied to consider a ban on fishery subsidies, says Fiji's outgoing foreign minister, Kaliopate Tavola.

Wellington's agreement is a breakthrough for islands countries like Fiji and the Solomon Islands anxious to see fishing licences and fishing access fees exempted from the proposed ban.

New Zealand belongs to a group of WTO members who are lobbying for such a ban, claiming fishery subsidies are the cause of over-capacity and over-fishing.

“The negotiations on fisheries subsidies are not straight forward,” Tavola told ISLANDS BUSINESS.

“For instance, countries like New Zealand are against the use of subsidies that will lead to over-fishing and over-capacity.

“That view also has resonance in developing countries as a rule.

“However, there are strong views also that developing countries are not responsible for over-fishing and over-capacity and they should be allowed to use subsidies to develop their fisheries to the fullest extent possible. This is especially relevant for small developing islands states.”

New Zealand and other members of the group, now referred to as “Friends of Fish” which includes Chile, Ecuador, Iceland, Peru, Philippines and the United States, had initially opposed calls to exempt fishery access fees from the definition of subsidies.

But following submissions from countries in the Pacific which derive up to US$60 million to US$70 million annually from fishing licences and access fees, Tavola said New Zealand especially has begun to recognise that some components of access fees are developmental assistance and therefore could be exempted.

He said through the assistance of the Commonwealth Secretariat in London, Fiji was able to approach the New Zealand delegation at last December's WTO conference in Hong Kong “to agree to a joint declaration that will specifically spell out the support for fisheries subsidies for developmental purposes for small islands states, in particular, because of the peculiarity of our geography and maritime nature”.

This declaration, Tavola says, can then be submitted to the WTO committee responsible.

“Prior to that, we propose to convince other small islands states in the Pacific and elsewhere to co-sponsor the declaration.

“We propose also to get on board the support of the other 'Friends of Fish', apart from New Zealand.”

Both New Zealand and Fiji have now formed a team in Geneva to start work on a draft declaration that would stress the merits of exempting fishing access fees from the subsidy ban.

Solomons' Robert Sisilo is one person who had taken the lead in ensuring that the concerns and plights of Pacific Islands countries are heard loud and clear in the WTO discussions.

Sisilo is the Pacific Islands Forum's permanent representative to the world body in Geneva. Through the support of other Europe-based envoys of the Pacific countries, Sisilo submitted a paper to the WTO negotiating group on rules, stressing the importance of fishing licences and access fees to our islands economies.

Australia is not a member of the Friends of Fish group, but ISLANDS BUSINESS has been advised that Canberra-like Wellington-is sympathetic towards the Pacific islands position.

It agrees that negotiations on the subject ought to focus on the trade effects of fishing subsidies and not on other issues like overcapacity and over-fishing. Australia believes the Forum paper now submitted to WTO has generated discussions on the need for and possible shape of the special and differential treatment of any subsidy discipline.

For Fiji, the WTO focus on fishing licences and access fees is particularly worrying given that an earlier WTO decision had seriously affected one of its main exporting commodity, sugar.

Because of complaints to WTO against the European Union's dumping of sugar in the world market, the EU's special sugar prices currently offers ACP sugar producers like Fiji three times more than the world prices will have to be reduced by 36% in the next four years.

This has forced the Fiji sugar industry to undergo drastic reforms with the help of Indian Government experts to make its four mills efficient and get its 20,000 odd small growers increase their productivity.

On the diplomatic front, Fiji together with other ACP sugar producers are pushing for the classification of sugar as a sensitive product with the EU, which will ensure the commodity continues to fetch good prices.

Said Tavola: “The concept of sensitive product was agreed to in the text approved in Hong Kong last December. There was also some progress in the sense that there was an agreement on the range of tariff lines on sensitive products.

“The specific products to be declared as sensitive products, however, are subject of negotiations between now and the end of 2006.

“In Hong Kong, the ACP sugar producers used every opportunity to lobby the EU to declare sugar as a sensitive product."