Archive - Mar 2006

The lack of a breakthrough at the London meeting of the 'Group of 6' Ministers last weekend does not quite spell disaster for the Doha negotiations nor the end of hopes that a final deal can be attained before the US President's fast track authority runs out.

The proposals for cutting tariffs of industrial products in the World Trade Organisation's current negotiations will have significant adverse effects on developing countries' industrialization, according to a paper presented at the Group of 24 Technical Group meeting held in Geneva on Friday 17 March.

According to 'Winners and Losers' by Sandra Polaski, a researcher with the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the so-called Doha Development Round, which launched the current trade World Trade Organisation talks, will not actually generate development benefits for poor nations as initially promised.

Below are the links for the services documents

A recent report detailing 36 cases of bio-piracy in Africa has been creating ripples at international meetings negotiating a fair deal for developing countries to benefit from their genetic resources and traditional knowledge.

Prospects of a new trade deal to end rich countries' farm subsidies and open up poor nations' markets were left hanging in the balance yesterday after a meeting of the world's top economic powers ended without a breakthrough.

Trade chiefs of the United States, the European Union, Brazil, India, Australia and Japan made scant progress in narrowing differences over the core elements for Doha Development Agenda agriculture and industrials packages on Saturday an outcome that placed the conclusion of negotiating modalities by the end of next month in jeopardy (WTD, 3/10/06).

The links below are the recent WTO documents.

The final day of the WIPO open forum on patents saw heated exchanges on the impact of patents and 'flexibilities' of the system on access to medicines, as well as an interesting debate on whether genes and life forms should be patented.

Trade chiefs of the United States, the European Union, Brazil, India, Australia and Japan are planning a busy two days today and Saturday in an effort to reach some accommodations on the most difficult issues in three central areas of the Doha Development Agenda whose outcome could indicate whether full modalities in the agriculture and industrials negotiations can be wrapped up by the end of next month, WTD was told (WTD, 3/9/06).