[PEN-L:34201] WTO/drugs

["Ian Murray" <seamus2001@xxxxxxxxx>]

WTO sorts drugs patent issues for Third World
A K Bhattacharya in Davos | January 29, 2003 12:43 IST
http://www.rediff.com/money/2003/jan/29wef3.htm

The World Trade Organisation has made headway in resolving the differences over
intellectual property rights for drugs needed by developing countries to fight major
diseases.

Announcing this at a World Economic Forum session on international trade on Sunday, WTO
Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi said his discussions with multinational drug
companies in the past few days were very encouraging and he was close to finalising a draft
agreement on that.

Post-Doha negotiations on allowing developing countries access to patented drugs needed to
fight major diseases through compulsory licensing had broken down since the deadline for
finalising a draft pact on it had ended on December 31, 2002.

Later, addressing a news conference, Panitchpakdi said along with South African Trade and
Industry Minister Alec Erwin and former WTO director-general Peter Sutherland, he had held
intensive discussions with drug companies and made progress on the coverage of drugs and
diseases under the proposed formula.

The drug companies, he said, had shown some understanding.

Panitchpakdi also said before the ministerial meeting at Cancun he had decided to convene a
preparatory meeting of trade secretaries of the member countries.

The meeting would thrash out the complexities of the Cancun agenda and prepare the
ministers for a positive conclusion without last-minute indecisiveness, tension or hitches,
he said.

Earlier addressing the WEF session, Panitchpakdi said the Cancun meeting could not fail
because every country wanted trade to prosper, and any failure at Cancun was bound to
retard trade growth.

"Doha also succeeded because we could not have afforded another failure like the one at
Seattle," he said.

Panitchpakdi said all the eight negotiating groups had made substantial progress ahead of
the Cancun meeting and that gave him hope.

Panitchpakdi's optimism, however, was in sharp contrast to the views expressed by other
participants at the session. Erwin, for instance, said the Cancun meeting was a political
process and the expectations should be based on this realisation.

Unilever Chairman Niall FitzGerald said the behaviour of the developed countries in recent
months on fulfilling promises made in Doha did not give any scope to developing countries
to have trust in the Cancun meeting.

FitzGerald also criticised Europe's lack of vision on trade-related issues.

The value of a multinational corporation was not necessarily determined by the financial
markets, but by the stakeholders, which included its customers, employees and the community
in which it operated, he added.

Erwin pointed out that Europe's stand on subsidies for agriculture was guided by its
farmers and a final view could be taken only after hearing out those farmers.

At an earlier session on trade, Nestle Chief Peter Brabeck-Letmathe lambasted the developed
world's policies on subsidies for agriculture.

In the US, farm subsidies amounted to $9,240 per cow and in Europe they were $6,190 per
cow, which would allow each cow to fly first-class around the world, he said.

Columbia University Professor Jagdish Bhagwati lamented the existence of asymmetrical trade
barriers that went against the poor countries.

Market access was important, but equally important was that markets should be penetrable,
he said. Bhagwati said there was no reason why patent protection issues should come under
the WTO.

French Minister-Delegate for External Trade Francois Loos defended the subsidies for
agriculture since it was a part of French culture.