The Doha Round of trade negotiations, initiated in 2001, is officially dead. But, say, trade experts, India needn’t mourn its passing.
NEW DELHI: Fourteen hours of non-stop negotiations didn’t help.
The Doha Round of trade negotiations, initiated in 2001, is officially dead. But, say, trade experts, India needn’t mourn its passing.
The consensus among trade experts is that a no-deal is better than a bad deal, which is what would have happened if some kind of a solution was hammered through at Geneva.
The collapse, they feel, has given India some breathing space to put a whole lot of things in order.
“We should be happy,” says Bibek Debroy, secretary general of the Punjab, Haryana, Delhi Chambers of Commerce and Industry even as the Confederation of Indian Industry and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry expressed their disappointment at the development.
“For the time being, there are no winners or losers,” says T K Bhaumik, trade policy expert.
The fact that the round would not meet its second deadline of December 2006 (it was originally to end in 2004) isn’t being seen as a tragedy.
The Tokyo Round took six years (1973-79) and the Uruguay Round (which led to the birth of the WTO) took seven (1986-93), with a stalemate for two years.
“How could anyone have expected that a round with far more vexed issues could be wrapped up in three years,” asks Biswajit Dhar, head, Centre for WTO Studies at the Indian Institute for Foreign Trade.
Why was it important for the Doha Round to end by December? Because the US Fast Track Authority, which allows the Administration to ratify any trade pact without the approval of the Congress, expires mid-2007.
And then, with American presidential elections due in 2008, a lame Administration may not take any decisions. Real negotiations, say Debroy and Dhar, will not begin before 2008-09.
But it is unlikely that WTO director general Pascal Lamy will just sit around waiting. He is expected to set the process in motion in three months and the process could get intensified after November following crucial house elections in the United States.
But serious negotiations, even then, are not likely to begin till the first quarter of 2009, says Dhar.
But in future rounds, levels of expectation should be toned down, he cautions.
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