Doha+round+is+looking+doomed,+Njobeni,+Business+Day

Business Day, Johannesburg, 21 December 2005
=**Doha round is looking doomed**=


 * Siseko Njobeni**

WITH 12 months to go before the end of the Doha development round, World Trade Organisation (WTO) member countries are racing against time, with little signs of agreement on the round’s cornerstones — agriculture, industrial goods and services.

As expected, there were no major agreements at the WTO’s sixth ministerial conference in Hong Kong which ended on Sunday, apart from a last-minute concession by the European Union (EU) to end export subsidies by 2013 and duty-free, quota-free access to its markets for least-developed countries.

Discussions on the so-called “full modalities” on agriculture, nonagricultural market access and services are supposed to finish by the end of next April, according to the conference’s declaration. Is that enough time? Given that these will give a clear indication of what agreements on these divisive areas will entail, the pressure is on.

The conference declaration acknowledges that much remains to be done. There is little room for changing deadlines, especially because US President George Bush’s negotiating authority given by the US congress expires next year, which will make things difficult for his country to commit to a deal.

Although the Hong Kong meeting created an opportunity to edge closer to an agreement in these areas, trade ministers were under no pressure to conclude any major deals. They could afford to sidestep thorny issues — and they did.

WTO director-general Pascal Lamy scaled down expectations to the point that, save for something as drastic as a walkout, it was difficult for the talks to fail completely. But now the time for tough decisions has come. Indications are that negotiations over the next few months will be difficult as developing and least-developed countries have insisted that they will no longer let their rich counterparts railroad them into imperfect deals.

Developing countries are concerned about the effect on their budding industries of liberalisation of trade in industrial goods and services. SA’s trade negotiator, Xavier Carim, says developing countries want to be given time to develop their services sectors, especially with regard to regulation.

The poorer countries want modalities on industrial goods and services to take into account the size of their countries, and this is accommodated in the Hong Kong conference declaration. But US trade negotiators do not see anything wrong with developing countries opening their services markets. They see this as a way of strengthening the global competitiveness of such markets — and have created a recipe for a showdown.

Also likely to make waters muddier in the run-up to April is the suspicion among the developing countries that their richer counterparts are not as committed to the round.

The actions of richer WTO members have done little to dispel such suspicions.

EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson does not deserve the accolades he has received for agreeing to an end date for export subsidies. What choice did he have? Yet the EU has tried to link concessions on farm subsidies to reciprocal action on the part of developing countries.

Its message at the talks was, “We will open up our agricultural markets if you let us into your industrial goods and services markets.”

A South African delegate in Hong Kong says there are signs that the EU and US have second thoughts about the Doha undertakings. There was a political context in which the Doha round was launched. It came just after the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks in the US and developed countries were keen to be seen helping their poorer counterparts get into the global trading system.

Noble as its intentions are, the Doha round got off to a rough start. The first ministerial meeting ended in chaos in Cancun, Mexico, last year over the very commitments the ministers made two years earlier.

There is often talk of getting the round back on track. But was it ever really on track? While a failed Doha round will blemish the WTO’s reputation as a forum for multilateral trade negotiations, the developing countries stand to lose the most.

What the developed countries cannot get at the multilateral level, they will seek in bilateral trade agreements, in which power relations are tilted in favour of the rich.

Some at the Hong Kong meeting said privately it was perhaps time for political intervention.

‖Njobeni is trade and industry correspondent.

From: http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/opinion.aspx?ID=BD4A130064