WTO members urged to avoid stocktaking: Hong Kong talks
GENEVA, Nov 10: World Trade Organization chief Pascal Lamy urged member states on Thursday to go beyond stocktaking when they gather in Hong Kong next month, even though they have agreed to curtail the scope of their conference there because of deadlock.
“Gathering ministers in Hong Kong just to look at reports probably would not enhance the credibility of the exercise,” Mr Lamy told journalists.
“So there will have to be negotiations in Hong Kong. Nobody has any doubt about this.”
Ministers from the 148-member WTO had hoped to approve the outlines of a deal to reduce trade barriers, as called for in the Doha round of negotiations, at the December 13-18 Hong Kong conference.
But top WTO negotiators meeting earlier this week failed to bridge key differences and acknowledged they would have to “recalibrate” the goals of the meeting.
That will leave their work cut out if they want to finish their talks by the end of 2006, the deadline for completing the round.
Mr Lamy said: “Obviously there is a risk that by recalibrating Hong Kong we take pressure of the negotiations and we lose precious time.
“The question is not to stop walking, but to advance step by step.”
The aim in Hong Kong had been to build on a framework agreed in the summer of 2004, coming up with what are known in WTO jargon as “modalities” — formulas and other guidelines for reducing trade barriers such as tariffs, which would eventually yield a formal treaty at the end of the round.
The 2004 interim deal included several agreements in principle, including one to eliminate export subsidies in farm trade, which critics say help producers in rich countries undercut their poor counterparts.
Mr Lamy said: “This of course leads us to the question of whether we can jump from the July 2004 framework directly to full modalities or whether we need an intermediary stage at Hong Kong instead.
“If we try this jump and we miss it, we might lose what has already been achieved, and this is not all desirable.”
Asked what he thought the new goal for Hong Kong should be, Mr Lamy said he favoured “a level which is in between” the 2004 deal and full modalities.
“How up from July 2004 and how down from full modalities” is something the people chairing the WTO’s different negotiating groups will need to decide over coming weeks, he said.
“I believe that for the clarity of negotiations, numbers have to be discussed,” he added.
The Doha round, launched in the Qatari capital in late 2001, has foundered on deep disagreements on the pace and scope of measures to cut trade-distorting agricultural subsidies in rich countries and to lower import tariffs on farm produce and industrial goods.
Powerful developing countries such as Brazil and India argue that farm subsidies in rich nations — the United States and the European Union in particular — depress global farm prices and prevent growers in poor nations from competing effectively on world markets.
Developing countries have dismissed trade-opening offers from the EU and the US as insufficient.
But the divisions also cut across rich nations, with the EU under fire from the US and Australia, and Japan, Norway and Switzerland saying they are wary of the impact of tariff cuts on their fragile farm sectors.
Brazil and India, which steer the powerful G20 developing country lobby, have resisted stepping up negotiations on trade in industrial products and services, such as banking, until the farm controversy is settled.
“If you look in a dispassionate way at what is already on the table, you will see that what is already there is not negligible,” said Mr Lamy.
“I am not saying there is enough on the table,” he said, adding: “Even in such controversial subjects as agriculture or industrial goods, there are audacious proposals on the table. The problem is that they are not sufficiently compatible.”—AFP
