UNCTAD has been contributing to confidence- and consensus-building in the WTO negotiations under the Doha Round, said senior government officials Friday, 8 October, at the annual session of UNCTAD´s Trade and Development Board. The Board, which is meeting in Geneva from 4 to 15 October, was conducting a review of developments and issues in the post-Doha work programme of particular concern to developing countries.
"UNCTAD has endeavoured to play an active, supportive role in making the development promise of Doha a reality", said Carlos Fortin, Officer-in-Charge of UNCTAD. Following the collapse of the Doha Round of trade talks at the WTO´s Ministerial Conference in Cancún (September 2003), a decision to re-start negotiations was reached last July, shortly after the 11th session of UNCTAD, held in June in São Paulo, Brazil.
"We acknowledge the spirit of good will surrounding UNCTAD XI in São Paulo, and agree that this good will contributed to the subsequent consensus on the frameworks contained in the July package", said Nancy Adams of the United States.
Given the political will, the international trading system and trade negotiations can deliver meaningful and substantial development gains by effectively addressing key issues of the Doha Round, said Lakshmi Puri, Director of UNCTAD´s Trade Division. In its review of the post-Doha work programme, the Board had before it a note prepared by the UNCTAD secretariat (TD/B/51/4) that provides a development perspective on those key issues and on the July package.
Participating in the discussions, WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi said he agreed with UNCTAD´s assessment of the July package in that it reaffirmed the value of multilateralism, re-established the viability of the Doha Round, reconfirmed the centrality of development concerns and recommitted WTO members to fulfilling the development dimension. It also helped to "reduce uncertainty in the multilateral trading system" and calmed "protectionist fears".
Ambassadors and senior delegates from 35 countries took the floor in Friday´s deliberations. A major focus of the discussions was to identify and elaborate upon the development dimensions of different elements of the July package. These include agriculture, non-agriculture market access, services, trade facilitation, and development issues. Other issues were also taken up, including the implications of the expiry of the WTO Agreement on Textiles and Clothing at the end of this year.
Speaking for the Group of 77 developing countries and China, Paulo Estivallet de Mesquita (Brazil) said that the July package was not the end of negotiations but marked the beginning of a "new and challenging" stage of the Doha Round that would focus on "details, specifics and concrete formulae and numbers relating to modalities and market access conditions". UNCTAD played a particularly important role in that regard, he said, by supporting developing countries in their participation in trade and trade negotiations. It was important to ensure that the development promises of Doha are effectively delivered, he stressed.
Ambassador Carlo Trojan, speaking for the European Union, said that the July framework was good for all WTO members and represented a collective success. "We are only halfway there and a lot still needs to be done," he said. Looking at the next WTO Ministerial Conference (Hong Kong, December 2005), he added, "We should aim to achieve the maximum progress by then so that the round can be concluded as soon as possible thereafter and in any event during 2006".
