March 29, 2007	Thursday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 9, 1428

LONDON, March 28: The chances of success in the World Trade Organization's Doha round of free-trade talks are fading, Marcos Jank, president of the Brazilian Institute for International Trade Negotiations, said on Wednesday.

“We have a big risk of failure,” he said at a conference organised by news and information service Agra Europe.

“There is a window of opportunity in 2007. I think that is closing. If we lose this year, because of the US election next year, we will probably lose 2008 too,” Jank said.

Jank said talks could resume in 2009 but after losing two years the prospects of success would be “very bad.” The WTO launched its Doha round in 2001 to cut barriers to trade around the world as a way to lift millions of people out of poverty and boost the global economy.

Trading powers have been locked in behind-the-scenes efforts in recent weeks to galvanise the negotiations, which were relaunched in January after a six-month suspension.

Jank said there was a risk that the failure of trade talks could lead to a world of bilateral agreements, adding these would just focus on market access and could not deal with domestic subsidies and anti-dumping rules.

He noted there were already many new instruments of protection not covered by WTO talks, including an explosion of barriers on sanitary grounds.—Reuters