Trade Ministers at Davos Press for “Meaningful Results” in Bali
WTO members should take stock at Easter on whether “meaningful results” at their upcoming December ministerial in Bali are possible, trade ministers from over 20 members said following an informal meeting last week in Davos. The gathering was held on the sidelines of the Annual World Economic Forum, where business leaders and policymakers gathered to review the tentative signs of recovery in the world economy. Trade, in particular, was a recurring topic during the five-day discussions, as speculation continues over the possible launch of US-EU negotiations amid the ramping up of the race for the new WTO head.
Trade ministers suggest Easter stocktaking
Preparations for the upcoming WTO ministerial conference in Bali, Indonesia took centre stage during the annual - and now traditional - informal meeting of trade ministers that was held on Saturday on the sidelines of the Davos gathering.
Ministers from the organisation’s membership are scheduled to gather on the Pacific island from 3-6 December, in a meeting that is being closely watched by the trade community as a place where movement on the stalled Doha negotiations might occur.
The last ministerial - held in Geneva in late 2011 - was widely viewed as a “housekeeping” style exercise, with ministers declaring the Doha Round of trade talks at an impasse and agreeing on a few non-Doha items relating to least developed countries. (See Bridges Daily Update, 18 December 2011) However, this upcoming meet is being viewed as a chance to move some of the less controversial elements of the Doha talks forward, though WTO members have been cautious to date in placing too much pressure publicly on the Bali preparation process.
With that in mind, members have spent much of the last year trying to whittle down brackets in the draft text of the Doha negotiations on trade facilitation, while also reviewing proposals for possibly advancing a few components from the agriculture and Special and Differential Treatment (S&DT) parts of the Round. Sources have said that the trade facilitation draft text, while still under negotiation, is making progress, with many of the current brackets stemming from just a few areas of disagreement.
The Saturday trade ministers’ meeting, hosted by Swiss Economy Minister Johann Schneider-Ammann, brought together over 20 top officials from the organisation’s membership, along with outgoing WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy and current General Council Chair Elin Østebø Johansen of Norway, with the purpose of discussing next steps in the Bali preparation process.
In his concluding remarks following the meeting, Schneider-Amman noted that ministers agreed that the core of any Bali outcome should indeed include trade facilitation, some agriculture components, and items of special interest to developing and least developed country (LDC) members.
Given the importance of time management in preparing for Bali, ministers also agreed on the need for “clarity on the scope of the possible deal as soon as possible,” the Swiss economy minister said. To that end, they suggested that WTO members evaluate at Easter where things stand and whether a “meaningful result” in Bali will be achievable, he added.
“All of us stressed that a success in Bali should not be seen as the end of the Doha road,” he said. “It should be considered as a stepping stone on the way to address the remaining issues under the WTO agenda including the conclusion of the Doha Round.”
“There remain many technical topics open, and it’s about closing them one by one,” WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy told reporters following the trade ministers’ meeting. “I believe this is doable.”
Other high-level meetings to prepare for Bali are likely to be on the horizon in the coming months. With the US and China both set to have new officials in their top trade posts by the Bali ministerial, key WTO players could meet again in what is known in trade circles as a “mini-ministerial” setting ahead of the December gathering, Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma suggested to Lamy today in New Delhi, according to the Business Standard.
EU-US talks
Meanwhile, the prospect of Brussels and Washington launching trade talks this year also featured prominently during the Davos summit, with EU national leaders reiterating their push for the negotiations.
“In late 2008 we saw the steepest fall in global trade ever and the deepest since the Great Depression,” British Prime Minister David Cameron told an audience at Davos last week. “More than four years on, and trade has still not recovered fully. This should be foremost in the mind of every leader and every diplomat during those long negotiations on trade and there is a huge amount on the table today.”
Highlighting the EU’s various bilateral trade efforts - including negotiations with Canada, which are said to be in their final stages, the recent conclusion of talks with Singapore, and the planned launch of discussions with Japan - Cameron particularly stressed the value that a deal with the US could add to the fragile EU economy.
“The EU and US together make up nearly a third of all global trade,” Cameron said. “A deal between us could add over £50 billion to the EU economy alone.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel also reiterated her own support of an EU-US pact during last week’s gathering.
Notably, US Trade Representative Ron Kirk - who is set to leave his role as the US’ top trade official next month - told the New York Times in an interview that his country is indeed interested in such negotiations, and said that his departure should not have any effect on the launch of the talks. However, he explained, such a deal must be able to pass in the US Congress and address possible concerns from domestic farm groups.
“We greatly value the trans-Atlantic relationship,” Kirk said, noting that Washington has devoted much time toward evaluating the possibility of an EU-US deal. “If we do this, we want there to be a bridge to somewhere and we want to get there on one tank of gas,” he added.
The delay in an expected report from a joint EU-US working group - which is meant to include recommendations on whether to begin trade talks - has sparked questions over whether Washington is getting cold feet over the potential pact. However, EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht told Reuters on Friday, the report is essentially ready, minus a few outstanding issues.
“I will go to Washington to discuss a couple of small items and for a final reading,” the EU trade chief said along the sidelines of a separate summit in Santiago, Chile (for more on the Santiago summit, see related story, this issue). “But essentially we’re on the same page.”
“We will have a common recommendation,” he added. “If we were of the opinion that it was not worth trying, we wouldn’t have put in this much time.”
Director-General candidates begin to campaign
During the five-day Davos meeting, candidates for the WTO’s highest post also began making their push for the job. Nine nominees are currently in the running for the Director-General position - the largest contingent ever in the organisation’s history - with eight of the candidates being from developing countries.
The list of candidates is made up of current or former trade ministers or WTO ambassadors. These include former Indonesian Trade Minister Mari Elka Pangestu; current South Korean Trade Minister Taeho Bark; Herminio Blanco, Mexico’s former minister of trade and industry; and Amina Mohamed, formerly Kenya’s WTO ambassador.
Also in the running are Costa Rican Foreign Trade Minister Anabel González; former Ghanaian Minister of Trade and Industry Alan John Kwadwo Kyerematen; New Zealand’s Tim Groser, who serves as his country’s Minister of Trade, Minister for Climate Change Issues, and Associate Minister for Foreign Affairs; Roberto Carvalho de Azevêdo, Brazil’s current WTO ambassador; and Ahmad Thougan Hindawi, previously Jordan’s Trade and Industry minister.
Speaking on Wednesday at an event hosted by the Evian Group - a global economic governance think tank at the Lausanne-based business school IMD - several of the candidates noted that the Doha negotiations’ struggles have caused significant frustration among the business sector.
“You have to distinguish [between] WTO and Doha - a lot of business people, when you say Doha, that’s when they get frustration in their eyes,” Pangestu commented. “This is also from my travels - some of them find Doha has undermined the WTO.”
“I think the fundamental point remains - physician, heal thyself,” Groser said. “They will be here once we start to develop momentum [in the negotiations].”
“I can get them back into that space when I convince them something real is going on here,” he said.
However, some stressed that businesses have not given up on the global trade body. As for whether businesses find the WTO irrelevant - “I don’t buy it,” Mohamed said, while acknowledging that there is frustration. “A divorce between [the two] could not happen, even if we tried.”
However, the five candidates at the Evian event - Mohamed, Groser, Pangestu, González, and Kyerematen - all noted that a trade facilitation deal in Bali could send a positive signal to the private sector, and help incite their interest further in the global trade body, and stressed that the WTO remains relevant despite the Doha Round struggles.
All nine are in the process of formally presenting themselves to the WTO membership this week at a meeting of the General Council, which is the organisation’s highest-decision making body outside of their ministerial conferences.
The presentation will next be followed by rounds of consultations among the membership, until one candidate can be chosen by consensus. Absent agreement, the appointment could go down to a vote, though that would be a last resort.
A full run-down of the General Council presentations will be published in a special Bridges report on Friday, 1 February
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| Date Posted | February 01 2013 |