Vanuatu’s government recently re-entered negotiations for its accession to the WTO.
Vanuatu’s Trade Minister James Bule said it’s imperative for Vanuatu to follow in the footsteps of other Melanesian countries who are already WTO members.
He claims that Vanuatu has to open up all its markets to outside access or fall by the wayside in the global economy.
However, John Salong said the government has failed to explain what ni-Vanuatu, most of whom survive on the traditional custom economy, would be gaining by joining.
“And that’s a ridiculous argument going into something, saying we’ve been forced by who? This is a sovereign country. So the argument is nonsensical to some of us who look at the trade imbalances and the reality that Vanuatu cannot even organize for people in the rural areas to bring things to markets.”
He said if the WTO is about improving trade, Vanuatu should first look at improving its internal infrastructure for market access.
Vanuatu’s Finance Minister Sela Molisa said that if Vanuatu becomes a WTO member, it can sue France and Germany for unfair treatment over the kava ban in Europe.
However, John Salong said 80 percent of ni-Vanuatu survives on the custom economy and so-called “free trade” deals offer them little.
“And the difficulty is to understand what we will be gaining. The finance minister said that it would have been possible to take certain countries to the WTO courts because of the kava ban. But Fiji was part of the WTO, why didn’t it take these countries (to court)? It also lost money because of the kava ban.”
