Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 9 • Number 1 • 19th January 2005

African Cotton Producers Unite To Defend Common Interests


ZOELLICK TO STEP DOWN AS USTR

United States Trade Representative (USTR) Robert Zoellick is leaving the office of the USTR to become the country’s Deputy Secretary of State, pending Senate approval. The Bush Administration announced Zoellick’s appointment as Condoleezza Rice’s deputy at the State Department on 7 January.

Attention now turns to who will lead the world’s largest economy through the rest of the Doha Round of trade talks. Rumoured to be high on the list of people to follow Zoellick is Gary Edson, a former White House advisor on economic affairs. Other potential successors are Josette Shiner, Zoellick’s deputy at the Office of the USTR; Jim Kolbe, a Republican House Representative from Arizona; Grant Aldonas, undersecretary of commerce for international trade; and Robert M. Kimmitt, a former senior official at the US State and Treasury departments who is currently the head of global policy at media conglomerate Time Warner, Inc.

"Bush Announces Zoellick as Deputy to Rice," WASHINGTON POST, 7 January 2005. "Trading Places," THE ECONOMIST, 7 January 2005. "U.S. Trade Rep to Be Condoleezza Rice Deputy — WSJ," REUTERS, 6 January 2005.

Following a regional conference on cotton from 21-22 December 2004 in Cotonou, Benin, West and Central African cotton producers have established an Association of African Cotton Producers (AProCA; the acronym is in French) to defend their common trade interests and enhance cooperation on issues related to cotton at the domestic, regional and multilateral levels. Among the key concerns of AProCA are the fall in world cotton prices and its connection to subsidies maintained by the US in favour of its cotton producers. As discussed at the December 2004 meeting, the association aims to coordinate the region’s efforts to ensure that demands in the proposal on cotton submitted prior to the Cancun Ministerial Conference in September 2003 — the so-called ’sectoral initiative’ on cotton — are fulfilled in the run-up to the WTO Hong Kong Ministerial Conference in December 2005.

For further information on the sectoral initiative on cotton see BRIDGES Weekly, 24 November 2004.

ICTSD reporting; "Coton: l’AProCA, pour défendre les intérêts des producteurs" AllAfrica.com, 28 December 2004.