Archive - Mar 2006

WTO farm talks, a central part of global free trade negotiations, have made some progress ahead of an April deadline but a breakthrough will come only when key political issues are resolved, officials said on Friday.

A group of developing countries, known as the NAMA-11, sharply criticised on Monday 20 March the demands of the developed countries for drastic reductions of their industrial tariffs by developing countries, and said the demands 'threaten to create an anti-development outcome' in the Doha talks.

Two links to articles on the reform and future of the EU's CAP. The first is a Memorandum on the Implementation and Future of the Reformed CAP. The second is an analysis by Jacques Berthelot on the Memorandum. Please note in particular the section at the end on the question of the future of the CAP.

As fundamental differences continue to stall progress in the World Trade Organization's Doha Development Round of trade talks, a senior official from the Indian Ministry of Commerce and Industry said March 20 that India would rather see the talks fail than accept an agreement that went against its interests.

Today, the hearing, in relation to the political prosecution against WTO protestors, was ended after all the witnesses finished the testimonies and the final submission by both prosecutor and defending lawyer.

Billions of dollars of World Bank money to promote trade in poorer countries has given disappointing returns in alleviating poverty, an independent study said Wednesday. Over three decades of trade assistance, the global lender has failed to do enough to cushion the blow of liberalisation on poorer citizens in targeted countries, the World Bank's Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) said.

Links to collective services requests related to agriculture, MFN exemptions and distribution services.

A link to the results from the NAMA simulations. It was sent by the U.S. to the Chair of the NAMA negotiations to circulate to all members.

The Indian Coordination Committee of Farmers

A new study on the impact of global trade liberalization on real incomes under the current WTO Doha round has challenged conventional wisdom, showing the benefits for the world economy are lower than usually touted and some developing countries, rather than seeing benefits, come out losers in many scenarios.