28 July 2004

Critical WTO talks begin [27 July 2004]

The following article is excerpted from the 27 July 2004 edition of “The Journal of Commerce”.

Government ministers from around the globe are gathering this week at the World Trade Organization in Geneva in a last-minute effort to craft a treaty they hope will provide a major boost to the world economy.

Negotiators have been meeting privately night and day to try to forge the text of a "framework" for an agreement before the July 31 deadline. Formal meetings start[ed] Tuesday.

The treaty framework will form the structure of continued negotiations in the current Doha Round of trade talks. The framework was supposed to be completed last September at a WTO ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico, but those talks collapsed without agreement.

Negotiators still face huge differences of opinion, especially in the key area of agriculture, where rich and poor nations have very different agendas, and exporters and importers have conflicting priorities. ….