Expectations are high of a breakthrough in the six-year-long round of crucial World Trade Organisation talks ahead of Thursday’s meeting of key players.
NEW DELHI: Delhi could break the logjam over the Doha round of trade negotiations. Expectations are high of a breakthrough in the six-year-long round of crucial World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks ahead of Thursday’s meeting of key players here.
Freeing world trade in agriculture has been the most contentious issue faced by the Doha round and it is on this issue that the Delhi meeting is likely to strike a deal. The idea is to let negotiations on other important subjects of industrial tariffs and trade in services also move forward.
Thursday’s gathering of trade ministers of the G-4 group (the US, the European Union, Brazil and India - the countries that articulate diverse positions) will be their first formal meeting since July, 2006, when negotiations were called off for lack of a consensus. The G-4 ministers will be joined later by their counterparts from Japan and Australia.
Trade diplomats cited two reasons for the Delhi conclave yielding a deal on cutting domestic farm subsidies and opening up markets for farm goods.
One, time is running out for the Doha round as a whole as the US president’s fast-track negotiating authority for presenting the outcome of the round as a single package to the US Congress is due to expire in June.
Two, optimism also springs from the fact that recent bilateral discussions involving these key ministers have made progress on establishing a framework for convergence in agriculture, though there are still vital differences.
“These talks are timely and important. If we are to use the remaining window of opportunity open to us, we need to intensify and accelerate the process of negotiation.
If we fail, Doha’s prospects for this year will be lost”, said trade commissioner Peter Mandelson, who will lead the EU at the Delhi talks.
The EU, the US, Brazil and India, on behalf of the G-20 (the alliance of developing countries, including China and South Africa), have been given space by the rest of the WTO membership to establish a greater degree of convergence among themselves.
It is not for these negotiators to reach a final agreement, but other WTO members expect them to come back to the membership with a consensus-building package and initiate the final collective stage of the negotiation.
The Doha round of negotiations, suspended in July, 2006, had been resumed on February 7 at the technical level in Geneva.
The commerce ministry, which is hosting the Delhi meeting, said ministers are expected to discuss areas of emerging convergence among countries as well as the steps to be taken to contribute in a constructive manner to the multilateral process. This will enable a successful conclusion of the Doha round.
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