Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 13 • Number 21 • 10th June 2009

Doha Talks Get New Energy at Cairns Group Meeting

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Trade ministers meeting on the sidelines of a summit of the Cairns Group of agricultural exporters have breathed new life into the Doha Round of trade talks, which many had declared dead after a collapse in high-level negotiations in Geneva last summer. But officials emerging from this week’s meetings, which brought together the top trade representatives from India and the US, as well as WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy, appear to have set themselves a new deadline for bringing the negotiations to a successful close: the end of 2010.

“What I saw is Ron Kirk and Anand Sharma clearly engaging in a process that should lead to the conclusion of the round sometime next year,” Lamy told journalists on Tuesday, referring to the US Trade Representative and the Indian trade minister, Agence-France Presse reported. The Director-General met with trade ministers on Monday to brief them on the latest developments in the talks back at WTO headquarters in Geneva.

David Walker of New Zealand, who chairs the Doha negotiations on agriculture, was also in Bali for the meetings, as were high-level trade officials from China, Japan and the EU, which, like the US and India, are not official members of the Cairns Group.

The discussions between Kirk and Sharma, which marked the first face-to-face meeting between the two officials, sparked particular interest within the trade community. The US and India were central players in the stalemate that brought down the talks last July (see Bridges Daily Updates, 30 July 2008, http://ictsd.net/i/wto/englishupdates/15315/); both countries have since appointed new trade ministers and one has undergone a change in administration.

With the new cast set, this week’s meetings, which were held at the Nusa Dua beach resort on the island of Bali, Indonesia, seemed to offer a new start for the two countries’ Doha talks.

“I had a very good meeting with Ron Kirk. We did not discuss specifics, only the broader aim to take the process forward. We didn’t discuss positions, we discussed the principles,” Sharma, who just took up his post last month, told Reuters on Monday.

Sharma added that it was time to “pick up the pieces from where they are and move forward.”

“There are no obstacles which are insurmountable,” he said. “We have to create an understanding and trust. There have to be adaptations and adjustments, that is what negotiations are meant for.”

But Kirk, in a statement released after the close of the meeting, stressed that the work already completed should not be discarded, but negotiators will need to think creatively about how the talks should proceed. The US has previously indicated that what is now on the table in the talks is unacceptable; it wants to gain more market access for its exports.

The Indian minister will visit Washington later this month to follow up on his consultations with Kirk.

“We are not looking at the difficulties, we are looking at the possibilities, to do our best and take this process to its culmination,” Sharma told AFP.

Cairns Group backs Doha, slams export subsidies

The Cairns Group ministers also threw their support behind Doha, calling a successful outcome to the talks “within our grasp.”

The group roundly condemned the export subsidies that the US and the EU have recently re-introduced to protect their domestic agriculture producers, saying that they were “deeply disappointed” by the protectionist shifts (see Bridges Weekly, 3 June 2009, http://ictsd.net/i/news/bridgesweekly/47866/).

But the EU’s ambassador to the WTO, Eckart Guth, defended the European subsidies in an interview over the weekend.

“The export subsidies are considered as a tool which should be eliminated under the Doha Round and we have taken a commitment to eliminate these export subsidies in 2013 and not before,” Guth told Reuters.

The Cairns Group consists of Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, South Africa, Thailand, and Uruguay.

Where to go from here?

Although no official Doha-centred ministerial summit is in the works, further progress in the Round could come soon. Indeed, Lamy has indicated that the Doha Round will be on the agenda at several major upcoming meetings. OECD ministers will gather in Paris later this month, the G8 is slated to meet in Italy in early July, and trade ministers from the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation group will convene in Singapore two weeks later. Each of those gatherings could add to the Round’s momentum, Lamy has said.

The next meeting of the G20 group of major economic powers, which is set to take place in the industrial US city of Pittsburgh in September, will also be a major focus for negotiators.

A full WTO ministerial has been scheduled to take place in Geneva in late autumn (see Bridges Weekly, 3 June 2009, http://ictsd.net/i/news/bridgesweekly/47831/). Although Doha is not officially on the agenda there, ministers would no doubt have the opportunity to discuss the Round on the sidelines of the summit.

ICTSD reporting; “INTERVIEW-EU defends dairy export subsidies in trade row,” REUTERS, 8 June 2009; “India, US hold ‘positive’ trade talks,” REUTERS, 8 June 2009; “WTO chief: Doha Round should conclude by 2010,” AGENCE-FRANCE PRESSE, 9 June 2009.