Jonathan Lynn
Reuters
GENEVA: World Trade Organization members will fail to meet their latest deadline of 2010 for completing the Doha round to open global commerce if they do not speed up their work, the head of the trade body said on Tuesday. WTO director general Pascal Lamy said countries were making some progress in the latest intensive negotiations in Geneva in areas such as facilitating trade and the technical work necessary to implement an eventual deal in agriculture.
“But I also believe it will be difficult to get to 2010 without a serious acceleration of the pace,” Lamy said.
“We need to see real negotiations emerge, not only informal consultations and discussions, but real exchanges among members,” the Frenchman told the WTO’s General Council.
Leaders of the G20 rich and emerging countries called at their summit in Pittsburgh last month for the Doha round, now in its eighth year, to be completed in 2010.
That was the latest in a series of calls to finish the longest running trade round, launched in late 2001 to open markets and help developing countries prosper through trade.
However, the high-level political exhortations have not been matched by compromise and movement in the Geneva discussions, leading many to question whether the G20 leaders are sincere in their calls for real negotiations.
“Technically the work is almost done. What we are missing now is political will,” said Egypt’s trade minister, Rachid Mohammad Rachid.
Rachid, echoing a view held by many emerging nations and rich countries alike, said the problem was that Washington – the key to any deal – was not engaging fully in the talks.
“The United States has not made its position clear yet vis-a-vis trade,” he told a meeting of the Arab-Swiss Chamber of Commerce in response to a question from Reuters.
Hel played down the importance of the 2010 deadline, saying many had already come and gone in the Doha round.
“Things do not fall apart and Doha has not yet concluded,” said the former businessman.
But Rachid said Egypt was keen to see the round finished as it wanted more trade to help it boost growth and create jobs as it reforms its economy.
As coordinator in the WTO for African countries, Egypt was particularly keen for a Doha deal to tackle development issues.
“At the end of the day we need the deal to happen, and nobody in the world needs the deal to happen more than Africa,” Rachid said.
A meeting of African trade ministers in Cairo next week should give some impetus to the talks, he said.
It will also be attended by trade ministers from major emerging countries such as Brazil and India, and representatives from the United States and European Union, plus Lamy, he said.
Lamy said that the WTO’s November 30-December 2 ministerial conference, while intended to look at the big picture in international trade and set WTO strategy for the next few years, rather than as a Doha negotiating session, would also tackle the Doha negotiations in some of its working groups.
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