TRADE ROUND LAUNCH 'NOT AT RISK IF DOHA CANCELLED': LAMY Hopes of launching a world trade round would survive even if security concerns forced the WTO to cancel this month's ministerial meeting in Doha, Qatar, the Financial Times (US-edition, p. 4) reports Pascal Lamy, the European Union trade commissioner, has said.
He also indicated a slight softening of the EU's tactics in its campaign to have environment placed on the agenda of a trade round. While continuing to insist on negotiations on the environment, he said "there is not a single subject which is a deal-maker or deal-breaker".
He said in an interview that a decision on whether to launch a round would depend on an assessment of the overall package that emerged from the Doha meeting, adding that the EU was "very open" to negotiations on agriculture.
Despite disagreement on key issues, says the story, WTO members said yesterday they were hopeful that ministers would agree to launch new global trade negotiations when they meet in Doha, Qatar, in just over a week. Rich and poor WTO members voiced their criticisms of the talks' draft agenda at yesterday's meeting of the WTO's ruling general council. However, there was acceptance that discussions in Geneva had gone as far as they could in balancing divergent demands. Stuart Harbinson, the general council chairman responsible for compiling the draft, said what remained were "issues only ministers can deal with".
The New York Times (p. C1), meanwhile, says with only a week to go before trade ministers are scheduled to gather in Doha, actions the United States has taken since the terrorist attacks appear to have widened the gap between rich and poor nations and persuaded some negotiators that the meeting could become a casualty of war.
The Bush administration's tussle with Bayer A.G.- in which Washington forced the company to sharply reduce the price of its anthrax drug Cipro - has emboldened developing countries to insist on a broad "public health" exception to international patent rules for other drugs, like those used to keep AIDS victims alive.
India, Nigeria and many others are also arguing that if the United States can cede special trading rights to Pakistan's textile and apparel makers to help a frontline ally, it should ease barriers for clothing makers in all poor countries.
Disputes over patent rules and textile quotas have been around for years, notes the story. But the exigencies of fighting terrorism have cast the matter into stark relief and set off a heated debate in Geneva, where negotiators for 142 nations in the World Trade Organization had hoped to be narrowing their differences ahead of the meeting.
The 11th-hour standoff has raised the possibility that trade ministers will converge on Qatar only to have the talks collapse, as they did in Seattle two years ago. Such a failure would be especially bitter because many officials say they fear for their safety by convening in the Persian Gulf region even as war rages in Afghanistan.
The news comes as Gichinga Ndirangu, campaign head at Action Aid and a member of the Kenyan delegation to the WTO talks, writes in The Nation (Kenya) that the WTO must be more proactive in stimulating economic growth among the world's poor by matching the elimination of trade imbalances in the North with technical and financial incentives to improve productivity in agriculture among the poor.
It is anathema for developed countries to continue exploiting the WTO system to further increase their share of world trade while paying scant attention to Africa's declining share, currently estimated at a paltry 2 per cent and compounded by declining export commodity prices.
There should be no illusions that developed countries will countenance giving up the existing inequities in favor of an equity that benefits the poor. And yet, addressing these imbalances is a prerequisite to securing a meaningful integration of developing countries in international trade to meet the ends of poverty eradication and economic growth.
Ultimately, it is in the interest of the rich to lift the poor out of want, Ndirangu says.
Commenting on security concerns in Doha, an FT editorial (US-edition, p. 16) says that if US intelligence agencies believe there is a high risk of attack, and if the Qataris do not allow the US to take all reasonable security precautions, the US should call the meeting off. It should announce this at once and begin discussions about a new date, preferably in early January, to preserve momentum.
Otherwise, and barring some last-minute catastrophe, the US should restate its commitment to the Doha meeting, making clear that it will send a high-powered delegation for the duration. Any more US equivocation risks generating confusion and undermining confidence in the WTO negotiating process.