GENEVA, March 26: WTO director general Supachai Panitchpakdi said on Wednesday the Iraq war threatened progress in the ongoing trade negotiations which faced a crucial deadline by end of the current month.

Briefing the newsmen, the WTO director general said it was feared that the deadline set for achieving consensus on modalities for agriculture, trade in services and special and differential agreement would not be materialized due to uncertainty in the Middle East.

“At a time of hostility, minds would be diverted from trade issues. When the world is threatened by imminent danger, people can do two things; they become more protectionist or more open to collective solution,” he warned.

The WTO director general said he was doubtful either the countries that were affected might be actively involved in the ongoing negotiations fully.

He said if the member countries were not ready to abide by the rules, then “we would not be able to have an effective multilateral trade system”. “It is necessary that developed countries give market access to developing countries and also seek measures to bring collective solution for under developed countries,” he said.

To a questions, the WTO director general said to arrest the downturn in the world economy, the WTO-member countries should open their markets and liberalize their economy so that to get benefits from each others.

“It is right time for all the WTO-member countries to remove all the tariff and non-tariff barriers to facilitate the trade among the member countries,” he said and added: “I am looking forward for understanding to address the threat of global economy slowdown by taking with the fact to open our economy,” he remarked.

Mr Panitchpakdi said he was optimistic that the next ministerial round in Mexico would help achieve good results on many undecided areas. “Even we have not achieved all the goals we set for ourselves at the Doha ministerial conference. However, we have made substantial improvement in this regard,” he said.

To another question, the WTO DG said he was not discouraged and fully alert to the prevailing conditions, and mutual understanding would be materialized in the next meetings. He said China during the first year of joining the WTO club performed well, however, it had yet to implement certain laws and TRIPS.

Mr Panitchpakdi said the draft modalities on agriculture agreement still continued to have special and differential treatment for developing countries.

He informed the newsmen that the WTO had allocated funds that would be utilized for helping developing countries to meet international standards and quality for seeking access in the markets of developed countries.

The WTO DG said developing countries not only needed technical assistance, but they also needed training and establishment of research institutions so that they could carry out trade analysis of their respective countries.

He said that for doing all these things “we are looking for some institutions which could help the WTO in providing all these services to developing countries.”

AFP adds:

STEEL TARIFFS: A WTO panel of experts has ruled against the United States in favour of the EU and seven other countries who had complained about US tariffs on steel imports, trade sources said on Wednesday.