How the issues of world trade affect you

HONG KONG, (AFP) - When well-heeled trade negotiators and politicians from around the world sit around a conference table in Hong Kong tomorrow, the lives and livelihoods of millions will be in the balance.

The people affected by its success or, more likely, failure, range from poor African cotton farmers for whom the talks could be, literally, a matter of life or death to rich American bankers keen to expand into the developing world.

They include struggling French farmers, fearful for their future, and textile workers toiling in the garment factories of Bangladesh.

There are Brazilian soya producers, hoping to see more trade with the global North, and the new breed of Chinese wheeler-dealers, eager for more trade east, west, north and south as China's economy rapidly expands.

Ahead of next week's talks, these are the stories of six such people, told to AFP reporters in six bureaus around the world:

DJOUGOU, Benin.

"Three of my children died from hunger in July and August. The village doctor could not save them. I don't want to continue to bury my children," Gafary Maya told AFP this week, with tears filling his eyes.

Maya, 41, is a cotton farmer in west Africa, part of a generation whose businesses have collapsed as their foreign market dried up, thanks at least in part to the subsidies received by US and European counterparts.

And having put his all into growing a crop he could neither sell nor eat, three of his children died through malnutrition this year, he claimed.

The subsidies paid to US cotton farmers in particular are likely to be a core issue of debate at the talks in Hong Kong talks next week, with Africa pressing harder than anyone for them to be cut.

With the market for African cotton undermined by US subsidies, once booming exports are a thing of the past and the government in Benin's main city of Cotonou has failed to pay even last year's meagre subsidies.

"It's the greatest curse to bury your child," Maya wept, explaining what it had cost him.

Like many in his situation, he is now largely abandoning cotton and, to save his family, he will this year cultivate only five hectares of cotton, against 50 a decade ago, preferring to sow crops that his family can eat.

"I've been a cotton farmer since 1990 but today I cannot continue. I prefer to feed my children, growing maize or groundnut. Cotton's killed me," he said.

The United States is expected to resist pressure for major cuts in the subsidies paid to its cotton farmers.

LE MERZER, France:

While life is harsh and unfair for many in Africa, Pierre-Yves Lozahic, a 40-year-old turkey farmer in Brittany, is also unhappy with the state of farming in Europe and fearful of what the future might bring.

France is the fiercest supporter of the billions of dollars the EU pays its farmers in subsidies each year and Lozahic is uneasy at the pressure for the sort of changes Maya and others would like to see in the current WTO talks.

The cutting of farm subsidies for the rich countries would, still, come at some cost, and it would be people like Lozahic who would pay, he says.

"I am obviously nervous," he told AFP at the Brittany farm where he has raised turkeys and farmed since 1989.

After a previous round of talks, poultry production in Brittany fell by 27 percent between 1998 and 2004, as cheaper chickens from Brazil and Thailand were used by the food industry in ready-made meals.

"Any further reduction in customs duties on poultry raises the spectre of a flood of products from these countries" and others like China, the world's largest poultry producer, said Jean Salmon, the head of Brittany's agriculture chamber.

Lozahic, who has four children, describes his situation as "difficult". "The sales price of our poultry has not gone up while our costs are rising."

For all his efforts, and despite investment, Lozahic does not even make the French minimum wage and thinks the competition he faces already is not fair.

French farmers have to compete with farmers in the developing world who have lower food safety standards to meet, he said.

"In France, we have production standards to respect that these countries don't have," he said. "If we stopped production here tomorrow, what would the consumer eat? Imported chickens raised without any safety standards whatsoever?"

DHAKA, Bangladesh:

Knowing nothing of trade talks and tariffs, Bangladeshi textile worker Lima Akhter, a slender sixteen-year-old weighing only 32 kilograms (70 pounds), walks three kilometres from her shared one-room slum home to the factory six days a week.

She works between 10 and 15 hours a day for some 1,800 taka (28 dollars) a month.

Bangladesh already enjoys duty-free access for textile exports to the European Union but wants that to be extended to allow its produce into all developed nations, including the United States, and with easier conditions.

Bangladesh is one of the world's poorest countries, with nearly half the 140 million population surviving on less than a dollar a day, and textile exports are a major source of revenue for the country.

If market access to the United States and other developed countries were to be eased, it could mean thousands of new jobs, better wages and an immediate reduction in poverty in Bangladesh, trade campaigners say.

"Allowing duty-free access of goods to developed nations would be a huge boost for the poor textile workers in countries like Bangladesh. There will be more jobs on offer, more choices and eventually a better living," said Ziaul Haq Mukta of the Bangladesh rights group Working Women.

"My father and I are the only members of our family that are earning. My salary means a lot to them," Lima told AFP in Dhaka.

"The problem is to find a factory where payment is regular. I worked in two other factories. One of them did not pay me for two consecutive months," she added.

With little idea of when things might change, Lima is pinning her hopes for a better living on a promotion to machine operator and a new salary of 40 dollars a month. That could change but is unlikely to do so at the trade talks next week.

BEIJING, China:

If life is still harsh for many in Asia, the living is easy for some. James Wang, a private business consultant from Chengdu in southwest China, is one of them.

Since it joined the global trade club in 2001, China's trade with the world has exploded, and Wang and his clients are among the beneficiaries.

"In terms of the WTO, I have clients that are looking for lower import duties on goods, which means better earnings for them and that therefore helps my business," Wang told AFP, in between business meetings in Beijing.

Whether it's the importing of Porsche cars, his newest project, or the building of golf courses requiring overseas raw materials, or more competitive prices on restricted barley for foreign beer makers, Wang believes the lowering of tariffs can only be beneficial to China.

"If you look at luxury goods ... there are huge tariffs," said Wang, 44.

"A Porsche in China still costs about two to three times more than it does in Europe ... (and) these kind of tariffs could come down more," he said.

"The WTO can help to change that and it will be benefit the country," Wang said, before flying to London.

Freeing up trade with China may do little for some people, but it has made people like James Wang rich.

VIANOPOLIS, Brazil:

Marcelo Caixeta, 63, has for the past 20 years worked a 600-hectare farm in Goias state, central Brazil, producing soya, maize and wheat and raising cattle.

Although, like Wang, he comes from a developing country and wants trade pressures eased, his concerns could not be more different from those of the Chinese business consultant.

His entire soya production is currently exported through the multinationals that have made Brazil the world's largest soya exporter.

But Caixete, who heads the Goias state farming federation, says he wants that to change so that individual farmers can export directly - and he wants tariffs and subsidies to come down to help that to happen.

The biggest problem he faces is the subsidies received by North American and European soya producers. "The subsidies of the EU, US and Canada cause a lot of problems," he said.

In Brazil, he said, producers "plant their crops without knowing what is coming, without a guaranteed minimum price or any form of insurance." This puts them at a big risk each year and makes it difficult to export.

WASHINGTON, United States:

Far from the concerns of the Benin cotton farmer or the Brazilian soya producer, Rick Lazio, a vice-president of US banking giants JP Morgan, has other things on his mind.

While non-government groups and trade activists are concentrating on the need for reform in the farm sector, as key to helping poor countries, this is not where the money is to be made. That, according to Rick, is in the services sector.

Covering 163 sectors including banking and insurance, the talks on services are based on a process where countries ask their trading partners for liberalisation in specific areas and the latter come up with their own proposals in return.

So far, fewer than 100 member states have made an offer. The EU wants developing countries to liberalise 139 sectors but the latter only want reforms in 93. Rick Lazio is a firm advocate of more change in the services sector and thinks the burden lies with the developing world.

"I am an advocate for trade liberalisation on agricultural issues because I think .. it's a window for addressing the more impactful issue of services liberalisation. That's really where economic growth is going to come from," he told AFP.

The toughest issues

THE following issues are central to the deadlock in the Doha Round talks among the 148 World Trade Organisation (WTO) governments.

FARM TRADE:

This accounts for just 10 percent of global commerce but is of enormous importance to the economies of developing countries. They are resisting concessions in other areas until rules are made fairer in the agricultural sector. The "three pillars" of the farm talks are:

- Export Subsidies.

These are judged to be the most damaging to fair trade because they weigh on global prices and penalise producers in poor nations. The European Union, which relies heavily on subsidies, has been ready to discuss their elimination but dates vary for particular products.

Other countries want them halted by 2010. In exchange, Brussels wants an end to export credits and food aid by Washington that are also seen as undermining poor farmers as well as tougher rules for state export companies in Canada and Australia.

- Domestic Support.

The United States has offered a 60-percent cut in support for US farmers in what is known in WTO jargon as the "Orange Box" - the most trade-distorting government subsidies that are directly linked to price or production levels.

In return, Washington wants Japan and the EU to make a cut of around 80 percent on the grounds that they are allowed to spend more under current WTO rules.

The United States has also proposed limiting to 2.5 percent so-called "Blue Box" support, which is not linked to production and is seen as less harmful to trade. These proposals have been criticised as insufficient by developing countries.

- Market Access.

The European Union is under fire from exporters such as Brazil, Australia and the United States. They say the EU offer to cut duties by between 35 and 60 percent does not go far enough.

Brussels also wants to keep higher tariffs on around 160 farm products that under WTO rules it has classed as "sensitive." Net food importing countries such as Japan and Switzerland, which also want to protect vulnerable or culturally important parts of their farming, oppose the idea of a ceiling on duties.

INDUSTRIAL GOODS:

Rich countries are seeking a generalised cut in import tariffs according to the "Swiss formula," first set out by Switzerland's negotiators. It would oblige all WTO members to reduce their tariffs to below a fixed level - the EU says it should be 10 percent.

Developing countries would benefit from "special and differential treatment" but are pressing for a smaller tariff reductions to protect their industries.