Brussels, 15/05/2009 (Agence Europe) - WTO Director General Pascal Lamy believes that it would be useful to convene a WTO ministerial meeting before the end of the year. This will be the first since the 2005 meeting in Hong Kong, which followed on from those in Cancun (2003), Doha (2001), Seattle (1999), Geneva (1998) and Singapore (1996). Unlike preceding meetings, this meeting, possibly from 30 November to 2 December, is unlikely to focus on Doha Round negotiations currently under way, but on normal WTO tasks. In the meantime, the relaunch of the multilateral political negotiations will be through other bodies than the WTO, such as the Cairns Group in Bali from 7-9 June, the OECD ministerial meeting at the end of June and the G8 Summit in la Maddalena (Italy) in July.
Following his first visit to Geneva on 11-13 May, where he had meetings with Pascal Lamy and European Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton, among others, new US Trade Representative Ron Kirk called for a new method of negotiating (see EUROPE 9901). One possibility is to no longer concentrate indefinitely on negotiations over arrangements for the liberalisation of trade in agriculture, industrial goods (NAMA) and services, but to move directly to drafting lists of undertakings in customs duty and subsidy reductions by country. This option would speed up the process for implementing tariff reductions and aid. Furthermore, exporting countries could quickly determine how those products of interest to them will be treated. Several developing countries feel, however, that an approach such as this would allow the US and other developed countries to wrest further concessions from them. Some developing countries also point out that preparation of their list of undertakings on tariff reductions would take at least a year. The WTO Secretariat, which most probably would have to do this work for the least developed countries, estimates that it would require at least six months to complete the work. (E.H./transl.rt)