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http://www.angolapress-angop.ao/noticia-e.asp?ID=391761 Current global trade deal will impoverish Africa - Oxfam November 16, 2005 Nairobi, Kenya, 11/16 - Africa could get poorer as a result of the current deal on the table at the World Trade Organization (WTO), unless urgent steps are taken to reverse the situation, Oxfam International warned in a report here Tuesday. According to the report, Africa is the only continent to have grown poorer in the last 25 years and sub-Saharan Africa the only region in the world to lose market share in agriculture trade due to restrictions in accessing external markets. "The directions the current (trade) negotiations have taken do not reflect a development agenda for many African countries. The agenda has been hijacked by rich countries who are more concerned about what is in it for them," said Elizabeth Mueni, Oxfam Kenya trade policy advisor. "What is being offered now will hurt Africa," she told journalists here during the launched of the report, published four years after the Doha Development Round started and one month before the crucial WTO Ministerial meeting in Hong Kong. African countries are gearing up for the 14-16 December Hong-Kong trade negotiations where rich Western nations are expected to seek more time to continue offering farm subsidies to their farmers, while trying to revive the spirit of the talks. "The development round has been turned on its head. To avoid another failure like that in Seattle and Cancun, the rich countries will need to be more accommodative to Africa and other developing countries positions in Hong Kong," Mueni said. |
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