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The following story is from the September 10 issue of International
Trade Reporter
Current Reports:
WTO
New Delhi ‘Breakthrough' Sets Restart
Of Doha Round Ag, NAMA Talks for Sept. 14
NEW DELHI—Ministers from over 30 World Trade Organization member countries announced plans Sept. 4 to restart negotiations on the Doha Round of global trade talks on agricultural and industrial tariff cuts in 10 days.
“There has been a breakthrough in this meeting. The impasse in resuming the negotiations has been broken,” said Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma at the close of two days of ministerial meetings in a bid to kick-start the talks, now in their seventh year. “Beginning Sept. 14, that Monday, the chief negotiators and senior officials will meet in Geneva to restart, reengage the entire process.”
The WTO announced Sept. 9 that its members will meet in Geneva on Sept. 14 to discuss the road ahead for the troubled Doha Round.
The Doha talks, intended to improve global market access by cutting massive farm subsidies in rich countries and import tariffs in poorer ones, broke down in July 2008 during discussions of the appropriate level of safeguards for developing countries facing a surge in agricultural imports (25 ITR 1124, 7/31/08).
The United States and India each blamed the other for refusing to compromise sufficiently on how a temporary protection option called the Special Safeguard Mechanism should work.
Stronger Indian Government Credited
But after elections in the spring that returned India's Congress-led government to power and allowed it to shed its left-wing partners, India has appeared keen to restart the round, and its efforts were widely praised by visiting ministers.
After a series of statements over recent months from small gatherings of ministers urging a return to the Doha talks, this month saw a sudden upswing of activity on the trade negotiations.
The Sept. 14 week of talks appears to be prep work for leaders of major industrialized and developing economies meeting in Pittsburgh Sept. 24-25 for a Group of 20 summit.
Proponents of the Doha Round are pushing for them to produce a road map for securing targets for cutting agricultural and industrial tariffs by the end of 2009 in order to pave the way for a final deal sometime in 2010.
Mind the Gaps
Sharma said that talks would resume from the last state of play, clarifying what appeared to be one of the more contentious issues.
“Much has been invested in the last seven years in the negotiations of the Doha Round,” said Sharma. “Therefore the same sequence is to be respected and the two draft reports on agriculture and NAMA
[non-agricultural market access] given by the chairs in 2008 are to be accepted as the base documents for resuming the negotiations.”
Earlier, several countries had questioned whether the United States, in asking for more specific concessions in areas so far left to the discretion of developing nations, was trying to undo what had been agreed up to December—a charge that U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk denied.
“What we have not asked for is an abandonment of all of the hard work that's gone before,” said the U.S. trade official.
“We think we can build on the existing texts but obviously gaps need to be filled in. They are called drafts for a reason.”
Kirk Still Wants Specifics
Kirk said that the United States still needs specifics from the advanced developing economies of Brazil, China, India and South Africa—not from the least developed countries—and that without these, the administration would find it hard to sell the deal to lawmakers back home.
“We think it's important to provide at least some framework as to how countries will at least use all of their special exemptions, whether it's special exceptions, special preferences or the special safeguard mechanism,” said Kirk.
The announcement that negotiations would resume came a day after President Obama moved to fill the post of U.S. ambassador to the WTO—a step looked for by other countries as a crucial sign that the United States is ready to get back to the negotiating table. The White House announced Sept. 3 that Obama plans to nominate Michael Punke, a former Clinton administration official, as deputy U.S. trade representative
(see related report, this issue).
Lamy Hails ‘Active' Negotiations
WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy said on Sept. 4 that he would begin the groundwork for the talks between senior officials in Geneva.
“We will take this up with the chairs of the various negotiating groups so that the week of the 14th of September is an active week of negotiation,” said Lamy. “To be very frank we haven't had an active week of negotiation since July. What we got from these meetings is it's time to go back to real engagement.”
Lamy said that a 2010 Doha deal is possible, but added that even if countries do agree on tariff cuts by that time, it would be at least five years till they took full effect in developed countries and twice that for developing countries.
Crean Sees New Political Will
“We are now in the endgame of Doha negotiations,” Australian Trade Minister Simon Crean Sept. 2 told a gathering of industry and reporters. “At the technical level we are very close to a solution.”
Crean, citing the U.S. stance that it knows fairly precisely what it has to concede in terms of subsidy cuts but not what it stands to gain, said it was necessary to get down to specifics as soon as possible.
The Australian trade minister also said negotiations should move forward simultaneously on several fronts, including non-agricultural market access (NAMA) and services.
“We have seen the realization emerge that if we are to meet
[the 2010] deadline we have to engage in a horizontal process,”
said Crean. “We can't close agriculture unless we close NAMA. And NAMA won't be closed in my view unless we have something of an accommodation on the sectoral front.”
But Crean added that there was political backing in both the United States and India for completing the round. “There has been some significant new political will injected into the system since the beginning of the year. Significantly we have seen the emergence of commitment by two significant players. One of them is India. The other is the United States,” said Crean.
“The question that's going to be asked is why this renewed support exists,” said Crean. “Trade is an economic stimulus. A strengthened ruled-based system is also the most effective insurance against the spread of protectionism, which is the other great concern that countries have in the current climate.”
Indian officials said ahead of the New Delhi gathering that the meeting was not intended to resume technical discussions, but rather an opportunity to hash out what issues need to be discussed by when in order to close a deal in just over a year.
December Modalities Draft Cited
Several countries called for talks on agriculture and NAMA to resume first, and to take place on the basis of the fourth revisions of draft agreements on tariff cuts, known as “modalities,” brought out by these two negotiating groups on Dec. 6(25 ITR 1739, 12/11/08).
“Negotiations must be based on the December 2008 draft modalities, which outline the possible agreements after seven years of hard work,”
said Brazilian Minister of External Relations Celso Amorim, coordinator of the WTO's G-20 grouping, according to a Sept. 3 statement from the Brazilian delegation. “A major change of goalposts will not work at this point.”
China took a similar stand, insisting agricultural tariff cuts must be sorted out first.
“We must safeguard what we have achieved in previous negotiations,”
said Chinese Minister of Commerce Chen Deming, according to a statement released by the Chinese delegation.
“Flexibility for developing members…must be fully respected. Any attempt to challenge or change the above mandate and consensus at the last moment would drag the round back to where it started.”
The remarks appeared to be aimed at the U.S. stance that while the subsidy cuts it would have to undertake were being spelled out, “flexibilities”
allowed to developing countries in various areas, such as how to designate which products would get special protections, made the gains unclear.
Meanwhile, the European Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel, said Sept. 3 that her grouping could give no further concessions on agriculture from what had already been agreed.
“That's out of the question,” Fischer Boel told BNA at the end of the first day of talks on Sept. 3. “We have squeezed the lemon, there's no juice, not a single drop of juice left.”
“I hope that there can be a broad agreement that a deal must be finalized—a single undertaking—for the end of next year, 2010.”
But if that is the case, the EU agriculture commissioner added, WTO members would have about seven months at the most to finalize specifics on agriculture and NAMA.
“The modalities, which is agriculture and NAMA, needs to be finalized not later than the first quarter of next year because the scheduling will take at the least six months,” she said.
Need Blueprint for Conclusion
Sharma Sept. 3 called for trade ministers from the some 35 countries gathered in New Delhi to reach a consensus on a blueprint for how to conclude the stalled trade talks by 2010.
“Go beyond yet another reaffirmation and work together collectively to provide guidance for a clear road map of multilateral engagement in the months ahead, remaining conscious of the 2010 time line,”
Sharma told his listeners, according to a statement issued at the meeting.
Lamy said that the long-running negotiation was partly the result of an increasingly representative process.
“The system of global governance is starting to evolve. We are seeing the emergence of new world leaders,” said the WTO chief. “The G-20, as imperfect as it may be, is certainly a much better, a much more legitimate forum than the G-8. And it may be that the discussions take a bit longer but it is certainly a better reflection of today's geopolitical realities.”
Sharma also highlighted the number of groups represented at the Delhi meeting, including the African Group, the G-33, the Cairns Group of agricultural exporting nations that is lobbying for agricultural liberalization and the Small and Vulnerable Economies.
“The international groupings of nations from which declarations of support for the Doha Round have emanated simply did not represent the full spectrum of the WTO membership,” said Sharma.
“The Delhi meeting constitutes a microcosm to the entire WTO membership, representing all shades of opinion and interests.”
Even so, other associations of nations have decided to hold additional Doha-related meetings in order to discuss issues of particular importance to them.
“African countries believe that early and successful conclusion of the Doha Development Round has become imperative as a stimulus for their economies,” said Egyptian Trade Minister Rachid Mohamed Rachid, representing the African Group, as he announced that his country would host an African Informal Ministerial meeting from Oct. 27-29.
By Tripti Lahiri
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