Lamy Speaks On Doha Agenda Priorities

by Ulrika Lomas, for LawAndTax-News.com, Brussels

27 June 2006

Speaking to the Inter-Parliamentary Union Conference last Thursday, Director-General of the World Trade Organisation, Pascal Lamy outlined the key issues on the Doha Development Agenda, in addition to examining the Union's relationship with the WTO.

Mr Lamy began by stating, with regard to the latter issue, that:

"I understand from your reports that you see your role on international trade as having three different dimensions: first, is a “surveillance” role, in which you monitor the actions of your governments and ensure their accountability. Second, is a role in ratifying international treaties with which your parliaments are presented. And, third, is a role in developing implementing legislation for international treaties, and seeing them through."

"This three dimensional role makes you crucial partners of the WTO. Your role is essential to ensuring both the understanding and acceptance of the WTO at the national level; and equally essential to tailoring new international obligations to domestic interests and needs."

Turning to the Doha Development Agenda, he explained that:

"Next week is a crucial moment for the negotiations. A number of ministers will be travelling to Geneva with the aim of narrowing differences in two key areas: trade opening in industrial and in agricultural goods. There are many other subjects in the Doha Round, such as the opening of services trade, the refinement of our rules on anti-dumping, the creation of new rules on fisheries subsidies, and on a whole host of other environmental issues. But we can only turn to this long list, with agricultural and industrial goods out of the way."

"Only this morning, the Chairs of the negotiating groups on agriculture and industrial goods have issued what are called “draft modalities” for their negotiations. These are documents that sum up the current state-of-play, and which will form the basis for next week's negotiations. They announce the beginning of a marathon, since much work remains."

He continued:

"In agriculture — a sector that was a late comer to rules of multilateral trade — and which lags some 50 odd years behind the industrial, much of the developing world has placed its aspirations. The various forms of subsidies that the rich world had given to its producers, have crowded out African and other farmers from international markets, putting the breaks on their agricultural trade."

"Furthermore, the very high tariffs on agricultural products have seriously hampered trade flow. Some developing countries argue that they need these tariffs to counter the effects of rich world subsidies, which lead to the dumping of their produce in developing country markets. So one distortion has basically led to another."

"While the average tariff worldwide on industrial goods is only 5%, it is 60% on the agricultural. In launching the Doha Round, the developing world insisted that these imbalances be corrected, and has since been very active in the negotiations."

Speaking with regard to industrial goods, Lamy observed that the situation is a "little less complicated, since we are dealing with a smaller range of issues".

He clarified:

"We need to agree on the size of the tariff cuts for developed and developing countries. While the average industrial tariff worldwide is low as I previously mentioned, developing country tariffs remain quite high, and developed countries continue to maintain certain tariff peaks. Furthermore, developed country tariffs tend to escalate on some of the products that are of key of commercial interest to developing countries, such as textiles."

"The lowering of developing country tariffs will also be crucial to a successful outcome on this part of the negotiations. High developing country tariffs have stifled competitiveness in their markets, raised the cost of essential goods to consumers, and hampered not only North-South, but also South-South trade. I urge Brazil, India, Egypt and other developing countries — that constitute the third side of “the magic triangle” — to join in making the necessary comprises next week."

The WTO chief concluded by observing that:

"A failure of the Doha Round would be first and foremost a loss for the developing world, who fought hard to launch a trade negotiation that would set the trade record straight. We now have a once in a generation opportunity to correct the imbalances in multilateral trade. I ask that we not waste it."

Meanwhile, US President George W. Bush last week stressed his country's commitment to making progress in the world trade talks.

According to the EU Business news service, he told reporters last Wednesday that:

"The Europeans have problems with the US position, we have problems with the European position, we both have problems with the G-20 position,"

However, he went on to add:

"We can't let this round fail, a failed WTO round would be a missed opportunity. We're trying to make difficult adjustments to our own internal policy in order to reach an agreement that's fair for all of us."

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