The Hindu Business Line : Some hope on Doha Round

While the `window of opportunity' for the World Trade Organisation's Doha Development Round negotiations — which has led participants to restart the process after the suspension in July last year — is welcome, the question must be asked whether a `window' of the sort being suggested by the WTO chief, Mr Pascal Lamy, really exists at all. For, on the answer will depend the outcome of the current effort to get the talks going once again; it will have to tied up by the end of June if further delays emanating from the US Congress (after the lapse of the Presidential fast-track negotiating authority) are to be avoided.

According to Mr Lamy, recently at Davos, "a renewed commitment on all sides to put the Doha Round back on track" was detected among select WTO members. Specifically, he said that the Ministers had indicated that `flexibilities' were "available within their mandates," thereby giving the impression that they were prepared to move from their previous positions which had led to the collapse of the talks. According to Mr Lamy, instead of focusing on "headline percentage figures for overall tariff and subsidy cuts," there was effort to "flesh out details about the various product-specific exemptions and rules that will determine the potential extent to which market access will grow and subsidy spending be restrained." There are, not surprisingly, no further details, the inference being that the entire optimism about the process is based on the "possible areas of convergence" indicated at Davos and, presumably, by cautious feedback from governments. But is this a strong enough basis to expect forward movement on the Doha Round? In the interests of freer multilateral trade, it is to be hoped that Mr Lamy is correct in his surmise, for there can be no two views on the usefulness of the Doha Round to the building of a healthier international trade order. The problem, however, is that the basis for this restarting of the talks is political which, relying on experience, is too uncertain a foundation. The most glaring example of this is the political initiative taken at the St. Petersburg G-8 meeting last July, which led to the Geneva meeting where the talks collapsed.

Clearly, there is no alternative to substantive negotiations and, there is little indication of any forward movement by any of the principal players on Mr Lamy's `triangle' of issues — Washington's agreement on deeper cuts to domestic farm support, Brussels' nod to increased agricultural market access, or the developing countries' (such as Brazil and India) preparedness to accept lower industrial tariffs. Worse, the WTO chief recently focused on the services sector which, if anything, is certain to muddy the waters further given the growing strength of the developing world in this sphere.