Brussels, 31/01/2011 (Agence Europe) - Despite its informal character, the first meeting of trade ministers from the main WTO trading countries since summer 2008 (organised this weekend in a backdrop to the Davos World Economic Forum) had created many expectations. The EU, Australia, the US, Japan and the major developing countries (Brazil, China and India) made a commitment to relaunching the Doha Round and to do everything they could to reach a comprehensive agreement in July.
Karel De Gucht hosted the ministerial meeting between the seven main WTO actors on Friday evening. At the end of the three-hour meeting (which was expanded to include ministers from around 20 countries) De Gucht said that he was confident about the possibility of a happy conclusion to the Doha Round being reached before the end of the year, as sought by G 20 leaders. The European commissioner for trade explained to the press that “everybody agreed that we are at the end of the match and we have to conclude an agreement in July”. He also explained that new draft compromise texts on modalities for liberalising agricultural trade, industrial products and services would be necessary “in March”. The chairmen of the two meetings, De Gucht and the Swiss minister for the economy Johann Schneider-Amman, “proposed having a revised text by Easter, if possible in April, and an overall agreement concluded in July”. This was confirmed by the Japanese minister for the economy Banri Kaieda. The staff of the Swiss minister for the economy provided assurances that “ministers agreed on the necessity of speeding up bilateral and multilateral negotiations and putting a stop to the different positions between the different parties”.
Although the WTO director-general, Pascal Lamy, welcomed the “total convergence” of participants on the importance of completing the development negotiations launched in 2001, this year, Ron Kirk was more cautious about the timetable and would only admit that the feeling of urgency was shared by all with regard to getting immediately involved in an effort to seize the current window of opportunity. The US representative for trade did, however, promise that the US would actively participate in this process. According to several different sources close to the negotiations, the US commitment to concluding the Doha Round negotiations within the deadline requested by the G 20 can be explained by the rapprochement between the US and China since the Seoul summit last November. In Davos, the willingness of the two countries to make progress was palpable.
The dangers of a failure and the subsequent ramifications for the global economy and the multilateral system, also helped obtain a renewed commitment from all the different parties at Davos. At the forum, David Cameron - the British prime minister, and his German counterpart - Angela Merkel made an appeal to all the 153 WTO member states to conclude an agreement that benefited everybody. On Saturday, De Gucht warned that there was still much work to be done. The ball is now noticeably in the court of the major developing countries, which are very determined to continue full-steam ahead, unless there are new concessions from developed countries. The Brazilian foreign affairs minister, Antonio de Aguiar Patriota, warned that “those requesting more will also have to pay more”. Chinese minister Chen Denming was more constructive and appealed for negotiations in the future to be broadly based upon the compromises established in July 2008. (E.H./transl.fl)