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TRADE: Pressure Rises for WTO Negotiators

By Gustavo Capdevila

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 23 2004 (IPS) - The goal of recovering this year the ground lost in the Doha Round of trade talks is winning support among the 147 member states of the World Trade Organisation, troubled by two years of sluggish negotiations.

Trade ministers and top officials from WTO countries expressed their aspirations for speeding up trade talks in the coming months, during a “mini-meeting” in this Swiss resort where the World Economic Forum is underway.

WTO director-general Supachai Panitchpakdi underscored the sense of urgency, and said he reckons that by April or May the outlook for the future of the Doha Round of trade liberalising negotiations would be clearer.

The urgency in avoiding a crisis of the multilateral trade system became evident in the wake of the Fifth WTO Ministerial Conference debacle last September at the Mexican resort of Cancún. That meet had been intended to give the talks a much-needed push.

Faced with the threat of an even deeper fracture, the trade superpowers – United States and European Union – and the developing countries have mobilised to get the process back on track.

Robert Zoellick, U.S. trade representative, sent a letter two weeks ago to his counterparts in the WTO countries emphasising the importance of progress in farm trade talks in order to get going on the other issues of the Doha Development Round, the tag given agenda agreed at the ministerial conference in the Qatari capital in November 2001.

Also trying to seek common ground, Pascal Lamy, the EU trade commissioner, visited several governments in December and met with the so-called Group of 20 (G20) developing countries, which emerged in opposition to the joint proposal that the EU and United States took to Cancún.

At this point, the negotiations entail expressions of good faith and promises of flexibility by most parties, but this spirit of rapprochement has not translated into action, says to Uruguayan diplomat Carlos Pérez del Castillo, chairman of the WTO General Council.

At stake in the Doha Round is the liberalisation of agricultural trade, but so are other weighty issues, such as trade in services, industrial tariffs and other matters that are of particular interest to developing countries.

The mini-meet of trade officials during the Davos Forum, drawing representatives from around 20 countries, was convened Joseph Deiss, president of the Swiss Confederation and also minister of economy.

Deiss wanted to make the most of the presence of the officials gathered here through Sunday for the annual international conference of national leaders, corporate executives, financiers and economists, with total participation in the thousands.

The mini-meet proved to be a “useful exchange of ideas,” said Pérez del Castillo. “Once again we had the reaffirmation of commitments by everyone with regard to getting this round back on track.”

WTO chief Supachai recommended that the WTO member states get involved in a more detailed discussion of each item on the negotiating agenda.

He also issued an appeal for greater participation by the national governments because the process often gets bogged down when trade negotiators claim they lack instructions from their superiors.

Discussions for bilateral and regional agreements sap the negotiating capacity of governments, and conspire against progress in the Doha round, says Supachai, prompting him to suggest reduced activity in those arenas this year.

The negotiation mechanism will be put into action again in mid-February, when the Geneva-based WTO will have named its new officials, including the members of the General Council.

But Brazilian representative Luiz Felipe de Seixas Correa told IPS that the “real negotiations” would begin Feb. 12 and 13, when the members of the G20 and EU sit down to talks in Geneva.

Seixas Correa, who took part in the mini-meet at Davos, stressed that the G20-EU talks would begin with the agricultural issue. Brazil coordinates the bloc of developing countries, with the active participation of Argentina, China, India and South Africa.

The United States and EU were represented at the trade meeting by their WTO negotiators, who reaffirmed their eagerness for progress in the Doha process.

The WTO is studying the possibility of holding a new ministerial conference this year. But it should only be held “in the perspective of a substantial breakthrough in the negotiations,” says the Swiss ministry of economy.

A new conference could stimulate negotiations, but would also leave open the possibility of another failure, which this time could have irreparable consequences for the multilateral trade system, said one trade official.

The WTO has already accepted Hong Kong’s offer to host the next international conference of trade ministers, which is normally organised every two years.

But WTO officials are probing the possibility with Hong Kong of an extraordinary ministerial conference towards the end of this year.

Hong Kong says it needs a concrete proposal by mid-February, because the Asian city’s conference centre has only one week open this year: the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day.