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WTO to Broaden Focus in 2009 After Doha Setback

Source: Reuters
17/12/2008

Geneva, Dec 17 - The World Trade Organisation will continue to seek a Doha trade deal next year, but will broaden its work from the recent focus on the core areas of agriculture and industrial goods, diplomats said on Tuesday.

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They were speaking after WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy met 32 key ambassadors to discuss plans for 2009 following last week's decision not to call ministers to Geneva to seek a breakthrough this year in the seven-year-old Doha round.

"Basically it's setting the stage for coming back in January and getting down to work," said one ambassador after the meeting.

The WTO is due to approve work plans for next year at a meeting on Wednesday, where the chairmen of the different negotiating groups will brief the 153 members on progress and plans in their areas of talks.

Efforts in recent months have concentrated on seeking an outline deal in agriculture and industrial goods. Agreement is close on most aspects of those talks, although enough serious obstacles remain to rule out a ministerial meeting for now.

"A lot of what remains to be tackled in these two issues is political," said one participant in Tuesday's meeting.

Now mediators in areas such as trade and environment will aim to catch up with the farm and manufacturing negotiations.

Negotiators also want to take a detailed look at the industrial goods proposals now on the table, where a plan to create duty-free zones in industries like chemicals beyond general tariff cuts became an insurmountable obstacle to a meeting of ministers.

Different countries have different understandings of the proposals, with the United States saying that only the sector deals would create new export opportunities, while big emerging countries like China and Brazil said that they would be cutting most of their tariffs under the general cuts anyway.

With prospects for a Doha deal put well back into 2009 or later, some countries want an "early harvest" of what has already been agreed.

Lamy said this could be possible with trade facilitation, which aims to make it easier, especially for developing countries, to ship goods.

But some areas where agreement is close or possible, such as bananas, cotton and duty-free quota-free access for goods from developing countries, are linked to the broader deal and cannot be handled separately, Lamy told the meeting. The WTO also plans to look at trade issues beyond the Doha negotiations, for instance monitoring measures by members such as anti-dumping duties or tariff hikes that may be within WTO rules but still contribute to a more protectionist climate.

Such monitoring would be useful to leaders of the G20 rich and emerging countries, who agreed at their summit last month not to raise trade barriers over the next 12 months, as well as calling for an outline Doha deal by the end of this year. G20 leaders are due to meet again in early April.



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