MOORE TO TRY TO LAUNCH NEW TRADE ROUND By Frances Williams in Geneva
Mike Moore, director-general of the World Trade Organisation, yesterday said he hoped to reconvene a ministerial conference "as soon as possible" to launch a new trade round following the suspension of last week's unsuccessful meeting in Seattle.
Mr Moore said it was vital to consolidate what was achieved at Seattle, where "gaps were narrowed considerably in a number of important areas". "A package of results is within reach," he said. "The longer we delay launching the negotiations, the more the poorest among us lose."
Trade officials said the WTO chief had already begun taking soundings on the prospects for reconvening the ministerial meeting, but with a US presidential election in a year's time the timing could hardly be more awkward.
Pascal Lamy, European Union trade commissioner, said on Monday that a further attempt to launch a new global trade round was unlikely before 2001, when the new US presidential team was in place.
The Seattle meeting ended in confusion with no written statement or communiqué. However, Charlene Barshefsky, US trade representative and chairman of the ministerial conference, said at the final brief plenary session that Mr Moore had been asked to pave the way for a resumption of the meeting.
Mr Moore would "consult with delegations and discuss creative ways in which we might bridge the remaining areas in which consensus does not yet exist, develop an improved process which is both efficient and fully inclusive, and prepare the way for successful conclusion," she said.
The WTO general council is due to discuss the follow-up to the Seattle meeting next week, including the vexed issue of how to secure full participation by all 135 WTO members.
Developing countries complained bitterly in Seattle that they were being excluded from decision-making, in spite of efforts to ensure transparency. African nations even threatened to veto any deal concocted by the leading traders.
However, though the US and EU came close to settling their differences over objectives for forthcoming agricultural negotiations, Brussels made its stance conditional on agreement to a broad agenda for the new trade talks that Washington could not accept.
The US also resisted demands by Japan and developing countries for a review of anti-dumping policy and other issues related to implementation of existing agreements, while pressing for a stronger role for the WTO on labour standards that antagonised poorer nations.