Warrington North MP travels to Geneva to uncover trade truth

Warrington North MP HELEN JONES today joins an all party group of MPs travelling to Geneva to meet with key trade ambassadors from the UK, Asia and Africa.

HELEN JONES joins Labour colleague Barbara Keeley, and both the Conservative and LibDem International Development spokesmen on the trip organised by the aid agency CAFOD to hear for herself what is stalling the trade talks.

World Trade Organisation (WTO) Director-General Pascal Lamy declared the talks “in crisis” following last weekend’s failure to move forward in negotiations. The end deadline for WTO talks is widely perceived to be the end of this month.

The MPs will be looking at where the UK is helping or hindering the process and in particular where the UK government priorities differ from that of developing country negotiators.

HELEN JONES said:

“ Trade justice is of utmost importance to developing countries if they are to be able to protect their own markets and to develop them. I am concerned that their representatives do not have the support that many of the richer countries have in the WTO talks and I want to hear what it is like negotiating from their perspective. “

CAFOD’s Trade Policy Analyst, Matt Griffith, who is accompanying the MPs said:

“ This is supposed to be a development round but instead the more powerful countries have hijacked the talks for their own interests and ignored developing country demands. It’s vital that UK MPs hear for themselves what developing countries are asking for and why and the pressures they face.

Among others, the group will meet the UK representatives at WTO, the Mauritian Ambassador, who co-ordinates the African, Pacific, Caribbean (ACP or G90) group and the Bangladesh Ambassador, who represents the least developed countries (LDCs). They will also meet the Kenyan Ambassador, who is a member of both the ACP group and the G33 – a group of 46 mainly developing countries, which are concerned about food and livelihood security and rural development needs.

The MPs hope to raise these issues in Parliament upon their return.