"gloom" on new WTO round

[Doug Henwood]

[from the World Bank's daily clipping service]

GLOOM DESCENDS ON PROSPECTS FOR NEW WORLD TRADE ROUND.

Senior officials from up to 20 countries will meet in Geneva today in an
atmosphere of some gloom, to discuss prospects for the launch of new global
trade liberalization talks this year, reports the Financial Times (p.4).  WTO
Director-General Mike Moore this month stressed the need for "95 
percent" of the
agenda to be agreed by the end of July if WTO members were to launch global
negotiations at their next ministerial meeting in Doha, Qatar in November.  But
with only four months to go before the July target, little apparent 
progress has
been made.

Developing-country opponents of a new trade round have, if anything, hardened
their positions.  Industrialized countries remain split on the agenda, while US
trade officials have decided to give priority to next month's summit in Canada,
which aims to accelerate negotiations on a Free Trade Agreement of 
the Americas.

US officials are not even attending today's meeting convened by the EU and
Japan, the round's staunchest proponents.  US Trade Representative Robert
Zoellick says the US will work for a new trade round, but it is not clear how
much effort Washington is prepared to put into preparations, what its
negotiating priorities are, and where the necessary compromises will be made.

By far the most important task ahead is to convince skeptical developing
countries, which now comprise three-quarters of the WTO's 140-strong 
membership,
that a round would be in their interests.  As their price for agreeing to a new
trade round, developing countries have posted a long list of demands ranging
from extra market access for their textiles and farm exports to firm pledges by
the industrialized nations to address their concerns in the negotiations.

The European Commission has already indicated it is prepared to be more
flexible, says the story, but there is no sign that the US is prepared to take
an equally flexible approach.  Some fear that the political will to make
compromises is just not there, the story notes.  "Few people really 
think a good
round is a good thing in itself," one Asian diplomat is quoted as saying.

The news comes as AFP reports that Thai academics and pressure groups yesterday
criticized a conference of top Asian government officials planned by the WTO as
a ploy to win support for a new trade round.  The WTO could use the 
upcoming WTO
Regional Seminar on Trade and Environment for Developing and Least Developed
Countries in Asia to "soften up" Asian nations ahead of the next WTO 
ministerial
meeting later this year, the activist and rights organizations said.