Ministers Discuss Doha Round In India

by Ulrika Lomas, Tax-News.com, Brussels

03 September 2009

An informal meeting of World Trade Organization ministers was launched in New Delhi on September 2 with the objective of giving a renewed push to the Doha round of world trade talks, which have been stalled for more than a year.

The meeting, which concludes on September 5, will seek to build on the decisions taken by the G20 leaders at the London summit in April, where it was decided that an “ambitious and balanced conclusion” to the Doha round is “urgently needed”.

Speaking ahead of her visit to India, European Union Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton observed that:

"A fair and satisfactory outcome to the Doha trade negotiations is important if we are to overcome the economic crisis. I welcome the Indian government's initiative to host this meeting, which presents the first opportunity for a large group of ministers to meet since the summer of 2008, and look forward to working together with India and other key WTO Members to move ahead with the talks."

While in New Delhi, Ashton will hold a bilateral meeting with her Indian counterpart Anand Sharma to discuss bilateral trade relations between the European Union and India.

Among other issues, Ashton and Sharma will review progress in bilateral negotiations for a comprehensive trade and investment agreement. EU Agricultural Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel will also hold talks with her counterpart, Sharad Pawar.

The Doha Round of talks began back in 2001. It aims to cut trade-distorting agriculture subsidies, curb fishery subsidies, open trade in services, facilitate customs operations, open trade in clean technology, adjust anti-dumping rules, and offer duty-free and quota-free access to the exports of the world’s poorest countries among other goals. The talks collapsed last July, with ministers attending trade talks in Geneva failing in their efforts to agree on blueprint agreements in agriculture and industrial products.

Pascal Lamy, who began his second term as WTO Director General on September 1, is urging participants in the Doha talks to “run the last mile” and complete the deal.

“The reinforcement of the multilateral trading system, in particular through the conclusion of the Doha Round, should be our guiding light,” he said earlier this year.

“We have walked along the Doha Round path for seven years now and we are 80% of the way there. We have done it together, with a bottom-up, inclusive process. A lot has been achieved — if you look back from where we started, there is a fairly long list of issues where views have converged,” he observed.

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