Brussels / Geneva, 28/03/2001 (Agence Europe) - The Union and Japan consider that the move in favour of a new round of trade talks is being reborn in Geneva where they co-chaired, on Tuesday, an informal assessment session attended by twenty key players from the World Trade Organisation (WTO). One notable exception was the United States.
The informal meeting, held in Geneva, brought together representatives of the developing and industrialised worlds (South Africa, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Egypt, EU, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, and the WTO Secretariat). The aim was to re-assess the prospects for a new round of talks on global trade liberalisation and the possibility of launching it from next November on at the institution's IVth ministerial conference. The result is convincing for the Europeans and Japanese, although "considerable effort has still to be made over coming months". "The feeling generally shared is that we should try to launch negotiations in Qatar later this year and we are certainly better prepared to achieve this than at the same stage preceding Seattle", stressed Director General for Trade at the European Commission Mogens Peter Carl and Deputy Foreign Minister for Japan Yoshiji Nogami, who chaired the session. Many fear a downturn in the world economy and a return to bilateralism and they consider, in this context, that it is all the more necessary to relaunch the multilateral process, it was specified in a declaration published after the work. They also noted that "everyone seemed interested in reducing differences and making progress" in view of the 4th WTO Ministerial Conference, to be held in Doha, from 9 to 13 November.
One of the main obstacles that remains to overcome comes from difficulties that developing countries have in implementing the commitments they made with their industrialised partners at the end of the Uruguay Round. "We made progress by taking decisions before Qatar on some of these concerns", Messrs. Carl and Nogami observed, stating that all participants had expressed the desire to achieve it by exploring, between now and then, a "more pragmatic approach". They observed that "many developing countries are seeking better market access and new or revised trading rules that directly assist their growth and development".
Talks were "practical and forward-looking", including not only the problem of implementation but also certain more thorny questions on the WTO agenda, notably market access, trade defence instruments (especially anti-dumping), investment, competition and the environment. On market access, "other" countries joined the Union in saying they were open to negotiations but on condition that other areas that they regard as priorities be broached. Japan and several developing countries, for their part, clearly set out the priority of including anti-dumping in the round, whereas the Europeans, circumspect but "open", placed emphasis on the need to ensure that these negotiations were practicable. In addition, those who, with the Union, recommend investment and competition on the round's agenda considerable reduced their ambitions last year, so much so that the issue is no longer to know "whether we are negotiating these issues" but "how should we broach them in the WTO", noted Mr Carl. It is, according to him, "a recognition of "our good faith. Many argue and we accept that the basic rules (to be defined) in these two fields must be favourable to development". Over environment and consumer safety, the participants are divided: some have admitted that it is necessary to clarify the rules rather that leave it to be done by the panels or the individual governments through unilateral measures, while others are concerned with opening the way for protectionism. In general, it seems that it will be necessary to give serious guarantees to the members over the fact that a clarification of the commercial and environmental or connected health rules cannot give rise to discrimination, nor to undue commercial restrictions", they note at the European Commission. The social problem, which still raises apprehension in the developing world, was raised by the participants who confirmed the diversity of their positions, but also the consensus against the possible use of trade sanctions.
Finally, the Union and Japan have agreed for their part that the multilateral declaration on the launching of the round should be short, but very clear on the object of the negotiations in order to avoid possible misunderstandings.