Priority Treatment of Developed Countries:

While the developing countries' proposals remain ignored,  the  developed countries get special attention and  treatment. Some examples will illustrate this point.

The developed countries brought a proposal in  the  Singapore Ministerial Conference (1996) for having duty he  import of  information  technology products. The supply capacity for such products is mostly with the developed countries, as is the case with high  technology products in general. Thus this proposal was clearly meant to give benefit  to the developed countries. It got immediately approved right in the same meeting.

Similar was the case with another class  of  trade. The  major  developed countries  placed the proposal for virtually duty fiee electroniccommerce,  i.e., trade through electronic medium. Here again, it is  mostly  the  developed countries that have  the supply  capacity for such  trade. The proposal was tabled in the Geneva Ministerial Conference (1998) and it was approved  in  the same meeting.  

In the negotiations  in the area of services, the sectors that are of great interest to  the developed countries were taken  up  for priority  negotiation  and agreement, e.g.,  financial services  and  telecommunication services. The subjects  of  interest  to  the developing countries,  e.g., providing services through the movement of persons, are met with stiff resistance  from  the major developed countries.

Apart from  the cases of priority attention to the proposals of the developed countries, some times the rules give special consideration  'and position to the developed countries' practices. For example, in the area of  subsidies, the measures mostly used by the developed countries were made immune from counter-action, e.g., subsidies  for research and development, adaptation  to new environmental. standards and regional development. (This  special provision got expired at the end of 1999.) But the subsidies normally needed by the de- veloping countries for  their  industrial diversification  and  technological upgradation did not get such favoured treatment.  Further,  though export subsidy is generally disallowed in the industrial sector, there  is  a special immunity to export credits (which  is a  form of export subsidy) granted  in accordance with OECD  norms. These are the  nonns  followed  by the developed countries and they have now got  special  dispensation  for  this practice in the WTO.