The Hindu Business Line : US keen to end WTO Doha round successfully

THE United States has signalled its determination and commitment to complete a global trade agreement in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) before the end of 2006. This is feasible, provided negotiators cross a series of mileposts along the way, according to a senior official of the Bush Administration.

The US has set out mileposts for successful completion of the Doha Round in Geneva on February 14 when the Deputy US Trade Representative, Mr Peter F. Allgeier, attended a key meeting of the WTO Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC), the group overseeing the negotiation.

The Commerce Secretary, Mr S. N. Menon, represented India in TNC as also the General Council meeting held on Tuesday.

After the fiasco of the Cancun Ministerial in September 2003, progress in the Doha Round was halting till last July, when a framework agreement was arrived at in Geneva to push forward the momentum of trade talks, particularly for carrying out the negotiations in reforming trade in agriculture, manufactured goods and services and streamlining Customs procedures. In order to take stock of the situation since the July Framework was unveiled, negotiators gathered in Geneva on February 14-15 to assess its progress.

The two-day Geneva meeting assumes significance because it was the first full gathering of Doha negotiators since a core group of trade ministers representing some 25 countries and trading blocs — including the US, the European Union, Brazil, Canada and India — met in January 2005 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and pledged to expedite the pace of negotiations.

Mr Allgeier made it clear that "we need to complete the round successfully by 2006" and that means that by December 2005, when the WTO trade ministers gather in Hong Kong for their bi-annual conclave, "we have got to have what we call an endgame document." In this regard, Mr Allgeier cautioned that progress by the end of July is crucial because after the summer recess, negotiators have necessarily only a couple of months left to work before the Hong Kong meeting.

"The endgame document" is described as a text that would provide modalities or specific details and timeframes in the areas of agriculture and non-agricultural market access (NAMA) including the various formulate and the necessary numbers.

It is also interesting to note that as New Delhi and other developing countries have been treating progress in reform of the expensive farm subsidy regime in developed countries as a pre-condition for moving forward in other areas, the Bush Administration official simply set aside any such rider.

Mr Allgeier cautioned negotiators not to expect any separate area of the negotiations to progress "in lock step" with the others. "We will have to avoid the temptation to suggest that movement in one area for now is not possible because we have not seen enough in some other area," Mr Allgeier quipped.

Even as many obstacles linger to farm policy reform in developed world, Mr Allgeier hinted to developing countries that they now have to show how they are going to reduce barriers to agricultural trade if they want developed countries to cut down domestic support payment to farmers.

On industrial goods, or NAMA, Mr Allgeier reiterated that the US wants to consider what is called a "Swiss formula" to reduce high tariffs much more sharply than low tariffs. A Swiss formula would produce a narrow range of final tariff rates and set a maximum top rate. But the US said that it is not averse to accepting somewhat different reduction rates for developed and developing countries.

As India and other developing countries from the Asean (Association of South East Asian Nations) and Latin American regions do not set store by Swiss formula, presumably due to revenue considerations and the dumping of foreign goods pricing out domestic industry products, how this overture of the US would help in proceeding with talks is a moot point.

Trade policy analysts are sceptical whether any such preconditions or mileposts would really serve the cause of multilateralism if the world's trade major does not show "policy flexibilities for the national governments to achieve the goals of development for all" through trade liberalisation.

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