Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 13 • Number 34 • 7th October 2009
Brazil Plans Doha Meeting for Nov. as US Kicks Off Bilateral Talks
Brazil, the EU and the US are engaging in high-level political manoeuvres on the WTO’s Doha Round of trade talks this week, maintaining at least some of the momentum generated by the G20’s recent call for swift progress in the negotiations. Meanwhile, trade officials back at WTO headquarters in Geneva continue to plough through some of the technical details of the talks.
Brazil is planning to host a meeting of trade ministers to focus on the Doha Round talks, sources said this week. The meeting, which is set to take place somewhere in the Geneva area just before the WTO’s full ministerial conference kicks off on 30 November, will bring together trade ministers from the WTO’s G20 coalition of developing countries (not to be confused with the G20 economic grouping that met in Pittsburgh last month). Ministers from countries that coordinate other developing-country negotiating coalitions will also be invited to participate, as will Pascal Lamy, the director-general of the WTO, one source said.
The agenda for the meeting, set for 28 and 29 November, has not yet been finalised, the source continued, but for the time being, the talks are set to focus on the WTO’s agriculture negotiations. However, it is possible that the scope of the discussions will expand, the source said.
The Doha Round will officially be off of the agenda of the WTO’s three-day ministerial conference, and will instead focus on the WTO’s ‘regular work’. The organisation’s membership decided earlier this year that the mandated meeting should not centre on the negotiations, which have suffered numerous setbacks since they were launched in the Qatari capital in November 2001. But with so many trade ministers in town for the conference, sideline meetings devoted to the Doha talks are inevitable, said one trade source, who expected that many of the WTO’s negotiating coalitions would hold meetings similar to the one now being organised by Brazil.
But officials will not have to wait until November to see some high-level political engagement on the Doha Round talks.
The US held quiet bilateral meetings with Brazil in Paris on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week to discuss various unresolved Doha Round issues, an informed source said. Negotiators hope that such bilateral sessions between the major players in the Doha Round will be able to generate a breakthrough in the technical discussions that are now in full swing back at WTO headquarters.
US Trade Representative Ron Kirk “has stressed the need for sustained bilateral engagement with key players in the Doha round to assess and address existing gaps, to supplement and give momentum to the overall multilateral negotiations,” USTR spokeswoman Carol Guthrie said in an email message.
Another high-level meeting is set for Thursday, when Kirk will host Japan’s new agriculture minister, Hirotaka Akamatsu, in Washington. The Japanese minister plans to bring up Doha Round issues during the meeting, a Japanese official told Dow Jones.
The United States is certainly getting pressured on Doha, if indirectly, by some of its major trading partners. Officials emerging from a Brazil-EU summit that was held in Brussels on Tuesday released a joint statement that seemed at least partially directed toward their counterparts in Washington.
“Both Brazil and the EU express their determination to conclude in 2010 the negotiations on the Doha Development Agenda,” the joint statement said. In a subtle jibe at the United States, which has hesitated to accept the most recent draft negotiating texts as the basis for future talks, the statement stressed that Brazil and the EU want future Doha Round talks to “take place on the basis of progress already made.”
Brazil and the EU also called on their fellow WTO members “to set out any specific demands they may have” for the talks, and added that it will be necessary for officials to “take stock of the situation no later than early 2010.” If substantial progress is not made soon, “the objective of closing the Round in 2010 will be at risk,” the joint statement said.
Delegates discuss trade facilitation, services
Meanwhile, trade delegates at WTO headquarters in Geneva are staying busy as negotiations continue to follow the very full schedule that Director-General Lamy presented last month (see Bridges Weekly, 23 September 2009, http://ictsd.net/i/news/bridgesweekly/55785/).
The negotiating group on trade facilitation - the committee tasked with cutting the red tape that can impede cross-border commerce -has meetings scheduled for Monday through Friday of this week. The talks, which this week are focused on freedom of transit and the publication and administration of trade regulations, “showed some progress,” one delegate said.
The chair of the talks, Sperisen Yurt of Guatemala, is urging the committee to come up with a ‘consolidated text’ by the end of the group’s next set of meetings, which are set to take place the week of 9 November. Given the progress made thus far, that goal seems within reach, the trade official said.
The talks on trade facilitation were officially launched when the WTO’s General Council enacted the ‘July Package’ on 1 August 2004. Members are mandated to clarify and improve the sections of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (the GATT) that cover freedom of transit (Article V), fees and formalities associated with exporting and importing (Article VIII), and the publication and administration of trade regulations (Article X). The talks also aim to improve technical assistance and capacity building and streamline interactions among customs authorities.
Also this week, WTO delegates are also diving into a full slate of meetings on liberalising trade in services. At time of writing, annual reports had been submitted by the Committee on Trade in Financial Services, the Working Party on Domestic Regulation, and the Working Party on GATS [General Agreement on Trade in Services] Rules. The Services Council met on Monday and Tuesday. A meeting of the Financial Services Committee is set for Thursday morning, while the Specific Commitments Committee will meet that afternoon. On Friday, delegates will meet again to discuss domestic regulations, and to negotiate during a ‘special session’ of the Services Council.
The next issue of Bridges Weekly will provide a more detailed update on the full week of meetings on services and trade facilitation.
ICTSD reporting; “EU, Brazil pressure US on Doha deadline,” REUTERS, 5 October 2009; “Japan agriculture minister to meet this week with USTR, USDA,” DOW JONES, 6 October 2009.