Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 13 • Number 8 • 4th March 2009
Lamy Hopes to Conclude Doha Deal This Summer
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World trade ministers could gather to conclude the Doha Round of trade talks before the WTO’s summer holiday, which starts 1 August, WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy said during a visit to Australia on Wednesday.
“What I hope is that before the summer break there will be a window of opportunity to bring them back,” Lamy said, referring to trade ministers.
Lamy said that he thought this schedule would accommodate upcoming elections in India and allow new US President Barack Obama’s trade team enough time to get on its feet.
Last year, an end-of-July gathering of ministers sought to achieve the same goal, but that meeting collapsed when ministers proved unable to overcome their differences on an agricultural safeguard mechanism. Several controversial issues, including cotton subsidies and sector-specific liberalisation initiatives in the industrial sector, also remained unresolved after the meeting.
“These subjects would have gained steam had we been successful last year but, to our great dismay, agreement proved elusive,” said Lamy, although he remained optimistic about future prospects for a deal.
“What remains to be coped with is a small portion of the big list we had to cope with last July. A large part of that is already stabilised, so normally with a bit more political energy on a smaller number of topics, normally it should work,” Lamy said.
Echoing recent statements from Lamy, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva recently called for a speedy conclusion to the Doha Round of trade talks.
“If the United States, Europe, Brazil close themselves, the crisis could become much bigger and produce chaos instead of a solution,” Brazilian President Lula told industry leaders in Sao Paulo last week, Reuters reported.
“The Doha round was almost finished but we had elections in the United States and then India and politics dominated. Now, nothing stands in the way,” said Lula. “The Doha round is more of a political than a financial decision.”
But others have less confidence in the Geneva-based global trade body.
Bark Tae-ho, dean of the Graduate School of International Studies at Seoul National University, said this week that the WTO system “has already collapsed,” given its inability to monitor and tackle protectionist trade policies.
ICTSD reporting; “Brazil’s Lula: finish Doha round or face chaos,” REUTERS, 27 February 2009; “WTO chief hopes for new trade talks in northern summer,” REUTERS, 3 March 2009; “The WTO is crumbling,” CHOSUN, 3 March 2009.
4 responses to “Lamy Hopes to Conclude Doha Deal This Summer”
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Is the target to have a final agreement or to have an agreement on modalities — the July 2008 target? To reach final agreement on market access would involve agreement on modalities and then the submissions of schedules that honored the modalities. The relevant modalities involve not only applying tariff formulas and making precise the allowed exceptions to application of the formulas, in many casses it involves converting to ad valorem tariffs. Is the idea to trust that all schedules follow the modalities, or is the expectation that Members will cross-check each others’ schedules, work out what appear to be differences between what the modalities promised and the schedules deliver? I hope that getting done in six months does not become an excuse for checking the figures. Failure to check the Uruguay Round fine print led to recurring problems.
THE G.20 COMUNIQUE IN LAST NOVEMBER 2008, AND WILL BE FOLLOWED BY NEXT MONTH G.20 METING IN LONDON MUST BE USED BY THE DIRECTOR GENERAL OF WTO AS POLITICAL BACK UP FOR HIS TARGET TO CONCLUDE THE DDA GOALS NEXT SUMMER. I BELIEVE MR.LAMY SHOULD HAVE AGENDA TO MEET THE LEADERS OF G20 DURING THE NEXT MEETING IN LONDON, TO PAVE THE ROAD FOR THE SUCCESS OF THE NEXT AUGUSDT 2009 MEETING.
I think it is possible if developing countries relent on labour and environment issues and if the problem of poor farms can be addressed through a safeguard system based on concept of minimum viable production(MVP) which provided protection to textile production in Canada and Scandanavian countries.
If there is a political will from both developing and developed countries it is doable . Multilateral trade liberalisation must have a positve impact on the financial crises .