Brussels, 29/07/2009 (Agence Europe) - Following appeals launched by different international bodies (Cairns Group ministerial meetings, OECD, OPEC and the G8 summit) for the relaunch of the Doha Round, Pascal Lamy (during a meeting of the WTO Trade Negotiating Committee on 24 July) drew up a balance sheet of the negotiations on world trade liberalisation. He also mentioned the prospects for technical talks taking place this autumn. The WTO director general, warned that the autumn would be very busy for all the Geneva negotiating groups. Mr Lamy will be participating at the informal ministerial in New Delhi on 3-4 September. Mr Lamy is expecting “full-on negotiations” at the WTO HQ this autumn in an attempt to make a breakthrough in achieving a multilateral agreement in 2010.
In agriculture, the New Zealand mediator, David Walker, predicts intense consultations in the week of 7 September as part of the effort to develop agricultural modalities. The Special Safeguard Mechanism, cotton, sensitive products, erosion of tariff preferences, tropical products, import tariff quotas and tariff simplification are questions still pending. Industrial products (NAMA), in addition to the other issues, to a large extent, solved in July last year, tariff reduction coefficients, applicable to developing and developed countries in the “Swiss formula”, as well as the anti-concentration clause (which would prevent emerging countries preserving tariff reductions for whole swathes of their industry), still need pushing forward in the chapter on sector agreements, which aim (on a voluntary basis), to totally get rid of tariffs in 14 sectors (cars, chemical products, electronics, fisheries, wood, raw materials, sports equipment, machines, toys, textiles and pharmaceuticals). The Swiss mediator, Luzius Wasescha foresees three weeks of discussions in September, which will tackle the chapter on non-tariff barriers, an area that still requires a lot of work. Services: bilateral and multilateral discussions over the last year have fostered understanding of the potential offers and requests made by member states, as well as clarification on the July 2008 Signalling Conference (EUROPE 9712). The services mediator, Fernando De Mateo, from Mexico, expects meetings in the week of 5 October. Rules (anti-dumping and subsidies) and fishing subsidies: the Uruguayan mediator, Guillermo Valles Galmès, is looking at two meetings in mid-September and at the beginning of October. The stepping up of the technical work on the chapter on geographical indications, which is dividing member countries that want to include TRIPS in the Doha negotiations and those that want to link it to the International Convention on Biodiversity from those that do not want the dossier to be included in the Doha mandate, allowed for some useful clarification on the proposals placed on the table at the end of 2008. Broader progress is expected and consultations are expected to increase in September. The same goes for environmental goods and services, which pits two approaches against each other. One is defended by developed countries and wants a list of green products with no duties and the other, defended by developing countries, wants a list proposing environmental activity of companies which would be granted tariff reduction on their imports. Negotiations on the facilitation of trade made progress to a stage where the parameters for the envisaged agreement are beginning to take a clear shape. Two meetings are planned for the beginning of October. (E.H./transl.rh)