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Davos meet recharges Doha Round of
WTO talks
By Gustavo Capdevila
DAVOS, Switzerland - The World Economic
Forum's 2005 meeting will be remembered more for
having served as the scenario for the
reinvigoration of the Doha Round of trade talks
than for the statesmen and celebrities who visited
this Swiss mountain resort last week.
The
presence of the trade ministers of 24 countries
went virtually unnoticed at a gathering whose
guest list included presidents Luiz Inacio Lula da
Silva of Brazil and Jacques Chirac of France,
British Prime Minister Tony Blair and German
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. But in the Arabella
Sheraton Hotel, where US actress Sharon Stone made
a big splash on Saturday and Israeli Deputy Prime
Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian authorities
held talks that will be crucial to the Middle East
peace process, the ministers gave a boost to the
lagging Doha Round of multilateral talks.
The agreement reached by the ministers in
their meeting on the sidelines of the World
Economic Forum paves the way for the sixth World
Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial conference
slated for next December in Hong Kong, where the
decisive phase of the multilateral trade
negotiations is to begin. Since it was launched at
the fourth WTO ministerial conference in the
capital of Qatar in December 2001, progress in the
Doha Round has been held up, mainly by conflicts
between rich and poor countries over the sensitive
issue of agriculture.
On July 31, the 148
WTO member states finally reached a framework
agreement for setting the "modalities" of the
trade talks. But since then, the negotiations have
virtually come to a halt, and the few talks that
have taken place so far have been limited to
technical aspects. However, the informal
ministerial meeting held on Saturday in Davos gave
a "political kick-start" to the process, said
Indian Commerce Minister Kamal Nath, who added
that it was "a positive meeting" that sent out
"positive signals". Before this, there was a
"feeling that the momentum had been lost", but "at
a ministerial level ... the right signals" have
been given to the negotiators in Geneva in order
for them to move forward, said Nath.
Other
prominent participants in the Davos Forum agreed
that Saturday's meeting was a success. WTO
director general Supachai Panitchpakdi said he was
"very happy" because it was a "very good meeting".
Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, who
coordinates the G20 (Group of 20) bloc of
developing nations pushing for the elimination of
agricultural subsidies, also described Saturday's
meeting as "very positive" and "constructive".
According to the agreements reached by the
ministers in Doha, prior to the Hong Kong
conference the negotiators are to concentrate on
coming up with solutions in five key areas:
agriculture, market access for industrial goods,
services, special and differential treatment of
developing nations, and trade rules. The question
of trade rules includes trade facilitation - a new
negotiation introduced last July that focuses on
the removal of customs barriers. The ministers
agreed in Doha that the modalities for the
negotiation of each issue are to be set by the
time the Hong Kong meeting opens. The modalities
are the formulas for the concessions that will be
made by each nation after the round of
multilateral talks is completed.
Swiss
Economy Minister Joseph Deiss, who hosted the
ministerial meeting in Davos, said the ministers
must go to Hong Kong with "concrete progress" on
modalities in agriculture and industrial goods as
well as a "critical mass" of progress on services
and trade facilitation. The draft agreements, he
said, should also include a "proper reflection of
the development dimension" - a reference to the
assymetries between nations that put developing
countries at a disadvantage.
The key
issues in the run-up to Hong Kong will be
discussed in a new ministerial meeting to take
place in Kenya in early March. The ministers
stated that the draft texts of the agreements -
the "approximation of the kind of modalities we
will like to see", in Supachai's words - should be
ready by August. If there is no outline of the
modalities by then, it will be very difficult to
reach an agreement next December, said Alfredo
Chiaradía, Argentina's secretary of foreign trade.
Deiss said the negotiators must reduce
their differences and that only a few major
political questions should be left pending by the
time the ministers meet in Hong Kong.
(Inter Press
Service) |
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