Brussels, 30/01/2015 (Agence Europe) - The resolve expressed at the World Economic Forum in Davos last weekend to make progress in the Doha round talks was this week confirmed in Geneva. WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo welcomed the “strong engagement” shown by the WTO member countries during the meeting of the trade negotiations committee on Thursday 29 January.
“We have made more progress in a week than we did in the first six months of 2014 (…) Members have started to go into more detail and to engage on the substance. While substantive positions haven't changed a great deal since last time these issues were discussed, it is clear to me that the tone of the discussion has changed. Despite the gaps between positions, I sensed a desire to overcome them”, said Azevedo. He also noted “a willingness to entertain new thinking in certain areas”. “Now it is time to move from ideas to proposals. This is still going to be incredibly difficult but I never thought it would be impossible, and I haven't changed my mind”, he added.
Intensive work awaits the negotiations from the 160 member countries in the first six months of this year in order to develop a clear and realistic work programme around sections that were not resolved in the Doha round - particularly agriculture, industrial products and services.
During an informal meeting organised by Switzerland on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos on 24 January, trade ministers from around 20 WTO member countries asserted their “resolve to engage constructively in order to define, by July, a clear and realistic work programme around the negotiation themes that were not resolved at the Doha round”. They also stated that “the emphasis should be placed on issues of interest for the less developed countries”, according to a press release published by the Swiss federal department of the economy on 24 January. The ministers also hailed the invitation from Kenya - which will host the 10th WTO ministerial conference in Nairobi in December.
“I've been following the WTO issues for five years. I've never had such a feeling of progress”, said Swiss trade minister, Johann Schneider-Ammann, who chaired the meeting attended by the ministers of around 20 countries - Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Egypt, Indonesia, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico; Norway, New Zealand, South Africa, South Korea, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, the USA and the EU - with the notable exception of India. (EH)