Geneva, 19/12/2011 (Agence Europe) - Although the eighth ministerial WTO conference on 15-17 December made official the entry of three new member states, Montenegro, Samoa and Russia, the conference was above all permeated by the noticeable failure and impossibility of concluding the Doha Round negotiations (launched in 2001 and devoted to development) within the internationally agreed timeframe, the end of 2012.
The eighth ministerial conference of the WTO finished in Geneva on Saturday, with a distinctly modest balance sheet. While the 153 member countries agreed not to resort to protectionism (although a concrete initiative adopted on the sidelines of the conference on 15 December only drew the support of 49), while agreement was reached on allowing Russia, Montenegro and the Samoan Islands to join the WTO and while the 15 countries that had already signed up in 1994 were able to reach a revised agreement on opening up public markets, the WTO last week officially acknowledged they had failed to find a way out of the Doha impasse. At the end of 2011, 10 years after the launch of the Doha negotiations, differences between industrialised countries and emerging economies remain too wide to entertain any hope of a breakthrough in the near future, and even less of success.
The Nigerian minister for trade, Olusegun Aganga, who was chairing the conference, confirmed at the end of the event on Saturday that “ministers deeply regret that, despite full engagement and intensified efforts to conclude the Doha Development Agenda single undertaking since 2009 the negotiations are at an impasse”. He added, “Ministers acknowledge that there are significantly different perspectives on the possible results that members can achieve in certain areas of the single undertaking. In this context, it is unlikely that all elements of the Doha Development Round could be concluded simultaneously in the near future”. He admitted that, “in order to achieve this end and to facilitate swifter progress, ministers recognise that members need to more fully explore different negotiating approaches while respecting the principles of transparency and inclusiveness” and added that, “in this context, ministers commit to advance negotiations, where progress can be achieved, including focusing on the elements of the Doha Declaration that allow members to reach provisional or definitive agreements based on consensus earlier than the full conclusion of the single undertaking”. He promised that ministers “will intensify their efforts to look into ways that may allow members to overcome the most critical and fundamental stalemates in the areas where multilateral convergence has proven to be especially challenging” whilst fully respecting, “the development component of the mandate”.
In addition to factors that testify to the blatant failure of members to seal a multilateral agreement with, according to its most steadfast defenders, the accompanying benefits for global growth and a crisis exit strategy, the declaration by the Nigerian minister reaffirmed the support of member countries for a multilateral system of trade based on rules but which will, nonetheless, require “ strengthening and improved adaptation to a currently difficult global economic environment”, as well as their commitment to open markets given that, “protectionism tends to accentuate a slowing down in the global economy”. Despite all this, only 49 countries made a concrete though informal agreement on the sidelines of the conference on the need to maintain customs duties at their current levels, in order to prevent spiralling into protectionism.
They also reaffirmed the “central place” of development in the work of the WTO and the need for the WTO to help further integrate developing countries, particularly the LDCs (least developed countries), in the multilateral trade system. Member countries, however, did not agree on the need to examine new issues at the WTO, such as climate, food safety, interest rates and competition.
Whilst brandishing the spectre of an economic depression aggravated by 1930s style isolationism, WTO Director General Pascal Lamy said that he was confident that “the lack of convergence would be overcome with time” and called on ministers to explore new working methods in 2012. On Thursday, the European Commissioner for Trade, Karel De Gucht, said that he was, “prepared to take the lead. The EU is ready to discuss everything without taboos. We must make sure 2012 does not become a 'lost year'”. With the US representative for trade Ron Kirk urging member countries to find a new road for concluding the Doha Round, the Chinese minister for trade, Chen Deming, underlined China's willingness to open up new ways, treating the question of least developed countries as a priority issue. On the eve of the conference, on 14 December, the five major emerging economies, the so-called BRICS - South Africa, Brazil, China, India and Russia (40% of the world's population and 18% of global GDP in 2010) - demonstrated their willingness to push forward the Doha Round, fight against protectionism and play a more active role in trade development.
Services, preferential treatment for LDCs. On 17 December, ministers from the 153 member countries adopted a 15-year waiver to enable developing and developed-country members to provide preferential treatment to services and service suppliers of the 31 least developed countries that are members of the WTO. (EH/transl.fl)