WTO: 2009 NEWS ITEMS
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Chairperson’s summary of the meeting
> Press
conference after the meeting
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Audio/video of the closing session
Political energy for Doha Round
Although this conference was not designed for
negotiations, almost all ministers said they wanted the
Doha Round talks to achieve an agreement soon, a large number
them calling for this to be done by the end of 2010.
These calls were made in formal plenary meetings and in informal working
sessions.
“Ministers reaffirmed the need to conclude the Round in 2010 and for a
stock-taking exercise to take place in the first quarter of next year,” the
conference chair, Chilean Finance Minister Andrés Velasco, told delegations
when he summed up the meeting for delegations.
“There was support for asking senior officials to continue to work to map
the road towards that point. Gaps remain on substance and there was wide
acknowledgment of the need for leadership and engagement on the remaining
specific issues over the coming weeks.”
He also stressed: “There was strong convergence on the importance of trade
and the Doha Round to economic recovery and poverty alleviation in
developing countries. The development dimension should remain central to the
Round and particular attention should be paid to issues of importance to
developing countries.”
WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy told a press conference afterwards that the
desire ministers expressed to conclude the Doha Round quickly has provided
the “political energy” to organize work for the coming months.
This work “roadmap” will be drawn up when senior officials from members’
capitals come to Geneva in mid-December, with the aim of setting the tasks
for the first quarter of 2010.
The date of the end of the first quarter arises because if members can agree
on “modalities” — the formulas and other outlines that form the blueprint
for the final agreement in agriculture and non-agricultural market access —
by that time, they could reach a final agreement by the end of the year.
Several ministers repeated their desire to see the talks end by then.
Asked whether this is realistic, Mr Lamy said “my view is that it’s
perfectly do-able,” but whether or not it will be achieved is up to the
members.
Decisions
“Moratoriums” are agreements not to take certain
actions. In electronic
commerce, the ministers are agreeing not to charge import duties on
electronic transmissions. Since the last time they met in Geneva in 1998,
the ministers have agreed not to impose the duties from one Ministerial
Conference to the next. The latest decision extends the moratorium further
until the next meeting, which they have decided to hold in 2011.
A similar extension was agreed in intellectual property. Members agreed not
to bring “non-violation” cases to the WTO dispute settlement process — “non-violation” is shorthand for
the technical question of whether there can be legal grounds for complaint
under the WTO’s intellectual property agreement, even when the agreement has
not been violated.
Members also agreed to hold the next Ministerial Conference in 2011. It
instructed the General Council — which comprises all members at the level of
ambassador — to hold consultations on the election of officers (chair, three
vice chairs, etc) for the 2011 meeting. And it acknowledged a report from
the General Council on the activities of the various councils and
committees.
Working session: WTO’s contribution
Earlier in the day, they held a second working session, this time on “the
WTO’s contribution to recovery, growth and development”. (A summary of the
first working session is here.)
Comments covered a wide range of topics, but many speakers welcomed the WTO
Secretariat’s recent series of reports monitoring governments’ trade
measures, particularly since the
current financial crisis broke out.
Several speakers saw this monitoring as a new and useful development in the
WTO’s role. They said this is useful both as a means of making information
available, and for countries to exercise peer pressure on each other to
avoid a damaging protectionist reaction to the economic crisis.
The reports show that “the system has held fast,” one minister said.
They noted that the measures governments have introduced are within their
commitments and in many cases include further liberalization. Some also
welcomed the fact that some of the reports have been prepared in cooperation
with other international organizations.
Many speakers also described the swift conclusion to the current
Doha Round
negotiations as an essential stimulus
package that does not draw on governments’ budgets and a further insurance
policy against protectionism. Several repeated their call for an agreement
in the Round by the end of 2010.
A few described an additional reason for wanting to conclude the Round
quickly. They said the WTO should move on to newer issues such as climate
change. A number, from both developed and developing countries, also called
for stronger Aid-for-Trade and related
activities to help developing countries adjust to economic circumstances and
benefit from the Doha Round’s outcome.
Among the other topics mentioned were: trade and social issues; increasing
dialogue with civil society, strengthening third-party rights in disputes,
sharpening the WTO’s analytical ability to look at value-added aspects of
trade, the role of services liberalization in development and the impact of
sectoral stimulus packages; non-tariff barriers such as product standards;
tackling private sector standards such as “food miles” and “carbon miles”;
regional trade agreements; technology transfer; trade finance; promoting
equity; investment and competition policy; speeding up membership
negotiations and making them more transparent.
The comments followed a suggestion from the conference chairperson, Chilean
Finance Minister Andrés Velasco, that members discuss: the WTO’s monitoring
and analytical function; “coherence” (i.e., international organizations
working together) and international governance; institutional and systemic
issues such as how to improve the way the WTO functions and to ensure that
it is transparent for farmers, businesses and parliamentarians; and other
questions such as the “tremendous challenge of climate change”.
At the end, the chair thanked Switzerland and Geneva on behalf of the
ministers for making the conference possible.
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