Fresh WTO round uncertain

By V.S. Sambandan

GENEVA, JUNE 15. There is cheer in the air here in Geneva, but for the 500-odd strong secretariat of the World Trading Organisation, the coming months till November, when the next Ministerial Conference is scheduled to take place at Doha, Qatar, will be hard times.

Considerable effort is being made to present a picture of preparedness and optimism to show that there will not be a repeat of Seattle (1999) when the Ministerial meeting collapsed amidst serious differences of opinion among the developed nations as well as between the rich and the poor countries.

The Director-General of the organisation, Mr. Mike Moore, told a group of journalists at a pre-Doha workshop here, that there was ``the need to balance up'' the issues confronting the global trading order. Officials have it that the chances of the next round are only ``50-50''.

There is consensus among the developing countries, especially the `like-minded group' including India, Pakistan, Egypt and other countries, that an expanded round of negotiations is not required now as many of the issues from the Uruguay Round are still pending.

The resistance from the developing countries to the expansion of negotiations is largely due to their earlier experience. The agreements already arrived at are not being enforced. Termed as ``implementation issues'' these are seen as the most important.

New protectionism

The pressure to expand the ambit of negotiations comes from the impending phase-out of agricultural subsidies by the E.U. and Japan and the need to balance them out by including other areas. This is seen by the developing countries as an attempt to ``induct new protectionism'.

The Canadian ambassador to the WTO, Mr. Sergio Marchi, said though ``perspectives vary between and among'' the members of the 141 members of the WTO, ``no single issue is more important than the sum of all others''. He said, for Doha it would have to be a ``varied and balanced menu of interests''.

Pakistan's ambassador to the WTO, Mr. Akram, the only other Government representative to address the journalists at the workshop, emphasised the need to address the `implementation issues'.

The ability of the political leadership of developing countries to stand up to the pressures of the rich nations is crucial. There is no sign of giving in to the pressures as yet. But when they are applied, they could be hard to resist. As Mr. Akram put it, ``we have the numbers, we don't have the trading strength''.

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Section  : International
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