MAY 6

{xtypo_dropcap}E{/xtypo_dropcap}conomic sovereignty was the
underlying message in a series of discussions on the World Trade
Organization and Free Trade Agreements at the Kyoto People's Forum on
the ADB today.

Trade activists from the Philippines, Japan and Korea shared
updates and vowed to intensify their struggle to derail the Doha
negotiations as well as bilateral and regional free trade agreements
across Asia.

{xtypo_quote_left}"The Doha talks, which supposedly aim to
address development issues, have become more and more obsessed with
numbers-on tariff cuts on agricultural, fisheries and industrial
products and on allowable levels of subsidies-while largely ignoring
issues like poverty and inequality, hunger, job losses, poor access
to social services like water and health that are the foremost
development concerns of poor countries," {/xtypo_quote_left}"The
Doha talks, which supposedly aim to address development issues, have
become more and more obsessed with numbers-on tariff cuts on
agricultural, fisheries and industrial products and on allowable
levels of subsidies-while largely ignoring issues like poverty and
inequality, hunger, job losses, poor access to social services like
water and health that are the foremost development concerns of poor
countries," said Joseph Purugganan of Focus on the Global South.

Purugganan warned that this ambitious liberalization agenda would
further reduce tariff rates for agriculture, fisheries and industrial
products. This would eventually lead to huge revenue and job losses
in Asia. But one of the most critical issues discussed was how
multilateral and bilateral free trade agreements, and policies and
programs of international financial institutions like the ADB are
devastating agriculture and undermining food sovereignty in Asia.

{xtypo_quote_left}"With trade liberalization, countries like
the Philippines are made to produce what the rich countries want
rather than what its own people need,"{/xtypo_quote_left}

"With trade liberalization, countries like the Philippines
are made to produce what the rich countries want rather than what its
own people need,"lamented Alice Raymundo of the Asia Pacific
Network for Food Soverignty.

Raymundo cited as an example the boom in the prawn and shrimp
production in the Philippines in the 1990s to supply the increasing
demand for these products in Japan.

"Production of staple food crops is giving way to high-value
crops that are exported to other countries. China, through its
bilateral agreement with the Philippines, is now pushing for
increased cassava and sugar cane production for biodiesel" added
Raymundo.

The aggressive push for greater trade liberalization in the region
is manifested not just in the efforts to conclude the Doha round
multilateral trade talks but in the bilateral and regional free trade
and economic partnership agreements that are being concluded by
countries left and right.

The Korea-US FTA is one of the most significant FTAs signed this
year. Aehwa Kim of the Korean Alliance against the KorUS FTA warned
that the deal with the US, could "pave the way for other FTAs to
be concluded in Asia." According to Kim, the struggle is not yet
over as the campaign in Korea would intensify in the months to come
as the agreement goes through the ratification process.

The Forum on WTO and FTAs concluded with calls for greater
coordination among the various campaigns on the WTO and FTAs across
Asia. It calls for intensified actions to resist unfair and unjust
trade agreements, and to push for alternatives.