Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 5 • Number 20 • 11th November 2005

WTO Members Scale Back Expectations for Hong Kong Ministerial

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Trade ministers from the US, the EU and Brazil told the press in Geneva on 9 November that it was highly unlikely that WTO Members would be able to agree on a detailed framework for the Doha Round in time for the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference in December. Members had hoped that negotiations in Hong Kong would lead to agreement on full ‘modalities’, namely specific numerical values and formulae for reducing tariffs on farm products and industrial goods. However, the failure of the EU and US in particular to agree to cuts on tariffs on agricultural products, along with differing opinions on how much sectors such as services and non-agricultural market access should be liberalised, has cast a pessimistic shadow over Geneva negotiators in the run-up to the Hong Kong meeting. Representatives from influential Member governments reported that they were unable to bridge the wide differences that separate them, particularly on agriculture. Negotiations, which have for the most part been held between the new “group of five” (US, EU, Australia, India and Brazil), have also struggled with development questions such as the extent of reductions in subsidies to agriculture, how to enhance special and differential treatment for developing countries and whether there should be differentiated treatment between small, medium and large developing countries. Delegations are scaling back their expectations for what they will be able to achieve in Hong Kong following three days of disappointing meetings in London and Geneva, but insist that their expectations for the round as a whole have not changed. Trade diplomats are now looking to the December summit for ‘partial modalities’ and agreement on a date for finalising full modalities, possibly at a second ministerial-level gathering in early 2006 that some have dubbed ‘Hong Kong Two’.

Although environmental issues have not explicitly been contentious in these high-level negotiations, issues such as agricultural, services and NAMA liberalisation, along with anti-dumping, have impacts on environment and sustainable development more broadly (see cotton, shrimp stories, this issue, on agriculture and anti-dumping respectively; for services, see Bridges Trade BioRes, 16 September 2005; for NAMA, see Bridges Trade BioRes, 28 October 2005). While the environmental group Friends of the Earth described the standstill as “good for people and the planet” and urged developing countries to not make concessions to trading partners, others expressed fears that a failure at Hong Kong would slow down the round and delay the gains that developing countries are could get from agriculture liberalisation.

For more detailed information on the state of WTO negotiations, see BRIDGES Weekly

ICTSD Reporting; “Trade Talks at a Standstill: Good for People And Planet,” FOEI PRESS RELEASE, 11 November 2005.