Bernard Allen (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)
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Question 33: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the steps he will be taking to encourage the growth of trade between developing countries and the European Union; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2660/05]

Michael D Higgins (Galway West, Labour)
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Question 68: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if he has proposed, in view of the recent South East Asia disaster and for the more general reason of poverty reduction, such new initiatives on trade as would bring a genuine development round in relation to trade into existence at the level of the World Trade Organisation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2762/05]

Michael Ahern (Cork East, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 33 and 68 together.

Trade is increasingly recognised as an important and effective lever for development and hence the alleviation of poverty. Ireland, in common with other EU member states, has placed a very clear emphasis on the need to assist developing countries and particularly least developed countries, LDCs, in their integration into the world economy as a necessary condition for their future development. Such integration, which is one element in the process of poverty reduction in the LDCs, will be deeper and fairer if anchored in the WTO multilateral trading system.

Ireland, along with other member states of the EU, in the context of the delivery of the development dimension of the Doha development agenda, is committed to working hard to secure genuinely pro-development outcomes in all areas of the DDA work programme. The DDA negotiations are currently ongoing and in that regard the European Union is giving priority in these negotiations to the achievement of real benefits to the poorest countries through substantial progress on issues of interest to developing and least developed countries. This discussion is taking place across the full range of issues including market access, special and differential treatment and trade-related assistance and capacity building targeted at those most in need.

By increasing their trade capacity developing countries can enhance export earnings, promote industrialisation and encourage the diversification of their economies. While multilateral trade liberalisation is the priority, effective preference arrangements can provide a stepping stone to help developing countries benefit in the long run from such broader liberalisation. A key instrument for helping developing countries achieve these objectives is the provision of tariff preferences under a generalised scheme of preferences such as the EU's GSP scheme. More recently, in the context of the enhancement of the European Union's generalised scheme of preferences for developing countries, the EU Commission has indicated that it is seeking the earliest adoption of the revised GSP regulation and in any case not later than 1 April 2005. The accelerated entry into force of these preferential trade measures will be to the benefit of tsunami-hit countries and is a direct response to the recent tsunami disaster. The EU GSP, already by far the most generous in the world, provides for further tariff concessions, in particular in the clothing and fisheries sectors, and its benefits will extend to all countries affected by the tsunami with its focus on those most in need such as the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia. Ireland is fully supportive of and is doing everything to see that the GSP regulation enters into force at the earliest opportunity.