WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  WT/MIN(05)/ST/98 
16 December 2005 
 (05-6112) 
MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE 
Sixth Session Hong Kong, 13 - 18 December 2005 Original:   English 
 
  
NICARAGUA 
 
Statement by HE Mr Norman Caldera Cardenal
 
Minister of Foreign Affairs  
  
Nicaragua has been true to our commitments:  no export subsidies in agriculture, no 
state-owned trading enterprises, our entire tariff schedule has been consolidated, and we have 
unilaterally lowered it to an average just above five  per cent;  we have become members of the ITA, 
and our laws are way ahead of the TRIPS and TRIMs commitments. 
Our GNP per capita is about two euros per day, Our Government taxes are about fifty cents of those two euros. With 1.50 euros per day, our citizens are supposed  to eat and clothe themselves, find shelter, 
pay utility bills and get some entertainment after a hard day's work. 
With the 50 cents in taxes, we are supposed to  provide them with free education and health 
care, reach the Millennium Goals, build roads, ports and the basi c infrastructure needed to get 
products to market, and counter the subsidies and, internal support that developed countries give to 
their farmers. 
Subsidies provided to some cows also amount to about two euros per day. 
Some Far Eastern cows get a subsidy of six euros per day. 
So, when the first cows found that out, they simply went mad! Frankly, when I return home, I may have to face many angry farmers who will be mad for a 
good reason. 
I am returning to the WTO after an absence, from 1976 to 2001.  When I quit as Minister of 
Trade, I learnt that there was a correlation between trade liberalization and development. 
QFTF then, was known as Article 1.  The Rule  was that MFN with  National Treatment 
(Article 2) were the goals and the purpo se of the GATT which we joined in 1950. 
Article XXIV, was meant to be an exception. But when I now return as Foreign Mi nister I find the WTO in turmoil. 
MFN is no longer at the centre stage;  Tropi cal Products, a promise to us after the Tokyo 
Round, are not even in the discussions. WT/MIN(05)/ST/98 
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 Now, it seems, preserving Article XXIV is more important than making progress in Article 1. 
We favour the QFTF for our fellow poor developi ng countries.  It goes a long way to advance 
the Free Trade purposes that are bringing us here. 
However, protecting erosion of preferential access will affect 70 per cent of Nicaraguan 
exports to the European Union and 82 per cent of our exports to the US, trading partners who make up 
69 per cent of our markets. 
Nicaragua lost its number one export and its engi ne for growth in the sixties and seventies to 
cotton subsidies. 
The same is true to many of our products, including sugar. We have applied for membership within the Cairns Group, as we support their stances. 
As for bananas, the EU purports to put forth a new illegal regime next January. 
An unreasonably high tariff level will undoubtedly reduce effective access to markets. While the old regime was revenue neutral equaliz ing tariff income with subsidy expenditures, 
the new regime maintains the level of subsidi es while more that doubling their tariff income. 
The net effect is that the poor in Latin America would be contributing two hundred and 
fifty-three million euros per y ear to the European budget. 
In Nicaragua, workers own 25 per cent of our private trading company and no multinationals 
are involved. 
Nicaragua is a low income country.  Yet, six LDCs who are classified as lower middle 
income economies will likely get what is being systematically denied to us. 
As a HIPC country, I will have to explain to our  farmers that developed countries will provide 
QFTF to 25 countries that are classified as less indebted or mediumly indebted.  Less in trouble than 
we are. 
Seventy per cent of Nicaragua's GNP is explained by the external sector, but we represent less 
than one ten thousanth of world exports, and yet,  Hong Kong has instead preferred to provide QFTF 
to six countries that have a higher participation in world trade than we do. 
The list of Annex VII of the Agreement on Subs idies and Countervailing duties have not been 
considered. 
Nicaragua wants market access, and we support ambitious proposals while asking for 
ourselves only flexibility for special products relate d to food security, as expressed to the G-33, and 
allowing us to negotiate our customs union. 
My colleague from Brazil has summed it up precisel y:  "The Doha Deve lopment Agenda was 
meant to address the unfinished business of the previ ous round:  correcting the growing gap between 
the rich and poor nations and the gap in existing trade rules between industrial and agricultural 
goods." 
Let us not add a new entry for the bogus dictionary that Mr Lamy found in the WTO library, 
let us not create a new category of countries called the "Least Favoured Nations".  WT/MIN(05)/ST/98 
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 I remain hopeful I can go back to Nicaragua to cel ebrate, to tell our farmers that their markets 
are more open and that their lot will be improved as a result of Doha and Hong Kong. 
We are still waiting. 
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