Brussels, 29/06/2009 (Agence Europe) - While technical discussions continue at WTO HQ slowly but surely, the relaunch in the Doha talks at a political level is also showing signs of moving into gear. The Director General of the WTO, Pascal Lamy, said that negotiations were taking a turn for the better and there is still some work to be done but what is on the table is 80% of the negotiations. Meeting on the initiative of the Australian minister of trade, Simon Crean, in the framework of the annual OECD meeting on 24-25 June in Paris, the main actors in the round affirmed their commitment to conclude the multilateral negotiations launched in Qatar in 2001 by 2010. The number of contacts between the US and India is increasing enormously, in an effort to get over their differences and help approach the round with more confidence. The dispute between Washington and New Delhi about the special safeguard mechanism to protect farmers in developing countries from a sharp increase in low price imports, is one off the main causes for the stalemate in the round, since the failure of the ministerial meeting in July last year. The US Representative for Trade, Ron Kirk, said that he is very encouraged because he had heard from the new Indian minister for trade, Anand Sharma and was hoping to continue working with him. In an effort to give the talks a new political boost, Mr Sharma wants to meet the main negotiators next September in India. The European Commissioner for trade, Catherine Ashton and her Australian counterpart, are calling for a rapid resumption in negotiations which they believe should be expanded beyond agriculture and industrial tariffs in order to examine other elements in the financial package, such as services and sector agreements for industrial products.
The determination to conclude matters is not enough and new concessions expected by the developed countries will be difficult to obtain from the emerging economies. In a joint declaration published after the meeting, trade ministers from South Africa, Rob Davies and his Indian and Brazilian counterpart (Celso Amorim) emphasise that “it would be unreasonable and unrealistic to suppose that new concessions will come from the developing countries, particularly in the context of the economic crisis”. Ron Kirk is putting forward a new approach based on direct bilateral negotiations between the main players in the round and kept up the pressure from Washington on the big emerging countries to open up their markets more to certain industrial sectors. (E.H./trans/rh)