Brussels, 07/06/2013 (Agence Europe) - The member countries of the WTO must make progress before the summer break - ahead of concluding a partial agreement on the Doha round in Bali in December, warns WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy.
While progress has been made in the Doha round negotiations over recent months, the 159 WTO member countries should find the means, by the summer break, of concluding a partial agreement on three subjects at the beginning of December - trade facilitation, special and differentiated treatment (including the needs of the least developed countries), and some elements of the agricultural chapter. The Doha round was started in 2001 and has been blocked since 2008.
“We have about 40 working days left before the end of July, which I see as the last petrol station before the Bali highway” - where the 9th ministerial conference of the WTO will be held on 3-9 December - said Lamy. “We must make substantive advances in this period if we are to have any chance of successfully delivering in Bali and preparing a post-Bali roadmap”, he warned. Lamy met around 15 trade ministers last week on the sidelines of the annual OECD meeting in Paris. No doubt Lamy - who will hand over his position to Roberto Azevedo at the end of August - would like to save what could perhaps be a moribund round, which he will not have been able to bring to a successful conclusion in his two mandates of four years. Azevedo was appointed in mid-May to take over from Lamy.
Progress will particularly be needed on the agricultural section. Elements of “political convergence” are within reach with regard to the G33 countries' proposal - led by India and Indonesia - on public stockholding for food security and domestic food aid. On this chapter, the situation has been unblocked a little with the announcement by the United States - long opposed to this request - on its willingness to examine ways to reform the WTO rules in order to strengthen food security (see EUROPE 10845). By contrast, for the proposal of the G20 emerging countries - led by Brazil - on removing export subsidies for agricultural products according to similar modalities to those which were provided for in the text on the Doha negotiating table in 2008, Lamy says that a more in-depth exchange of views is “urgently” needed in order to identify the way forward. Lastly, the discussions on the other G20 proposal - on tariff rate quotas for imports - seem to be “in a reasonably good shape”.
Gita Wirjawan to chair the Bali conference. The WTO member countries agreed, at the General Council on 4 June, that the Indonesian minister for trade will chair the meeting in December. (EH/transl.fl)