Another set of negotiations is drawing to a close at the World Trade Organisation in Geneva today. If agreement is reached, Sri Lankans will find out the consequences later. Who knows what strategy the Government is following. We can hope that the minister responsible, G.L. Peiris, has an idea of what needs to be done to ensure that the country gains rather than loses, but he doesn’t appear to have told anybody else.

This is a little odd. Sri Lanka’s economy is heavily dependent on trade. We know this well enough by now. The main thrust of economic policy in the last three decades has been to attract money from abroad to start businesses that will make products to send back in the other direction. Trade constitutes nearly 70% of the Gross Domestic Product.

What’s more, we know that there are important decisions to be made on the subject. It matters what taxes the United States charges on garment imports, whether Thailand is allowed to subsidise its farmers to export their rice at prices lower than the cost of production in this country, how far Sri Lanka can go in propping up its own cultivators, what measures can be used to support local entrepreneurs, whether the Government can stop products that use technology it doesn’t trust being sold here, how much in the way of regulation can be imposed on the operations of financial institutions, whether Indian manufacturers are allowed to copy drugs whose originals are prohibitively expensive for the majority in developing countries, and a whole lot besides.

The debate about the GSP Plus concessions has demonstrated this in a small way. People from a wide range of backgrounds have offered their opinion as to whether the Government should attempt to comply with the conditions laid down by Brussels.

It is simple. If Sri Lanka is thrown out of the scheme, companies from the European Union who buy goods from this country will have to pay more in tax. That means there is a chance that they will prefer other suppliers or give up the purchase altogether. We can all understand this very basic point.

Admittedly, a peculiar number of commentators have become interested in this issue solely because they see it as a continuation of Western efforts to punish the Government for its war victory, and they talk about holding out against imperialism, protecting the country’s sovereignty, declaring independence from the West and its self-serving aid industry and so on. The Government has encouraged this tendency to regard everything that happens to Sri Lanka as linked to the defeat of terrorism, of course, to distract us from wondering whether its policies are to blame for what might happen to Sri Lankan exporters.

But a good deal of useful information has emerged in the process. We have heard from ministers, the Central Bank, various companies and trade associations, trade unions and organisations supporting them, the Opposition and even the Archbishop of Colombo. It has become somewhat of a popular cause.

The World Trade Organisation is rather more complicated. The talks involve all its one hundred and thirty something member states, and they cover a huge range of topics. They have also been going on for eight years, during which there have been two Ministerial Conferences of the kind that is wrapping up today, in Mexico and Hong Kong. Keeping track of what’s happening is a challenge.

This is why the Government neglects the task of working out a coherent position, as many administrations have done over the years. It then avoids telling people that there were ever any decisions to be made.

Academics have a special role to play in informing the country and ensuring that a debate gets underway. The Sri Lanka Economics Association dedicated its Annual Sessions to trade agreements a couple of years ago, but analysis of what Sri Lankan representatives ought to be pushing for or trying desperately to avoid was rather limited. Nobody attempted to explain how such objectives could be attained either. Worse, very little has been heard from the contributors since. It would be sad if there weren’t a single intellectual in Sri Lanka looking into the World Trade Organisation and its implications.

There is plenty to analyse. After the last agreement, the United Nations estimated that the poorest countries were going to lose between $300 million and $600 million per year. Export earnings would drop and the cost of food imports would go up, it said. In depth analysis of the impact was opposed by rich countries, who wanted official agencies to concentrate on assessing gains and the new opportunities created.

That was 1994 and Sri Lanka was ahead of the game in liberalising its economy. It had started more than a decade earlier.

A lot has happened in the intervening time. Many other countries have followed this example in one way or another, including giants like India and China, while Sri Lankans have become rather more circumspect in their enthusiasm for free trade.

The World Trade Organisation calls what is under discussion now its ’Development Agenda’, apparently in recognition of the need to help poor countries. It is supposed to be about ensuring that trade benefits everybody. Officials talk of increasing wellbeing in all member states, narrowing the gap with the richest countries and so on.

It is no more than rhetoric. Even the World Bank, a committed follower of the Washington Consensus of neoliberal reforms for as long as most of us can remember, says that the deal on the table is biased towards rich countries. They will get 80% of any gains. The rest will go to a handful of others, namely China and India, plus a few sectors in Brazil, Argentina, Indonesia and Thailand. That doesn’t appear to have much to do with development. It sounds rather more like the most powerful countries reinforcing their own positions and ensuring that their dominance of the world continues for a while longer.

This isn’t even free trade, so we needn’t get stuck in exchanges driven purely by ideology. It is about interests and tactics. What Sri Lanka’s agenda should be needs to be rather clearer than it stands today.

If anybody doubts whether something unfortunate could emerge from Geneva, they should note the difference between preparations for that meeting and for the one that is going to take place in Copenhagen next week to discuss climate change. Champika Ranawaka has announced what the Government is working towards in that process in advance and with great eagerness. In fact, he has been talking about it so much that we are starting to get bored. This is not because he is any more transparent than his colleagues. He simply expects to have something positive to announce on his return.

The best result at the World Trade Organisation would be no agreement. Fortunately for Sri Lanka, this is probably what is going to happen today. The problems of the last year and more in the global economy have somewhat distracted member states from negotiations, and they have postponed decisions several times. However, this situation isn’t going to persist forever. It would be better for the country if the Government were prepared for the next round. G.L. Peiris could start by calling a press conference on his return to Colombo to explain what he expects the eventual outcome to be and what steps he is going to take in the meantime to ensure that Sri Lankans are ready for it.