Archive - Mar 2006

Sponsored by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development

The US has been asked by several trading partners to open up its port services to international competition, a longstanding request given more significance by the dispute over the takeover of P&O by Dubai Ports World.

The Bush administration is working with members of Congress to find a way of meeting India's politically difficult demand in world trade talks that the United States open its market to more temporary workers

Links to eight plurilateral requests for services liberalisation that have been submitted in the WTO. These include: energy, environmental services, telecommunications, financial services, architectural and engineering, construction, maritime transport, and computer related services.

Senior officials from the so-called Group-of-Six countries the United States, the European Union, Brazil, India, Australia and Japan yesterday concluded a three-day meeting in Paris on agriculture issues in the Doha Development Agenda trade negotiations with little apparent progress

The United States and the European Union surprised negotiators yesterday by abruptly pulling out of a plurilateral group of countries pushing for further liberalization of logistics services.

Brussels yesterday flatly rejected calls by the United States, Australia and Brazil to improve its farm market access offer a stand that cast doubts on whether the ministerial meeting of the Group-of-Six countries next week in London will succeed in breaking the ice in the Doha Development Agenda farm negotiations.

The United States joined the European Union, Japan, Canada and other industrialized nations yesterday in presenting requests under a new plurilateral approach in the stalled Doha Development Agenda services negotiations.

Below is a link to the updated methodology for the agriculture and NAMA simulations. It includes the Argentina, Brazil and India (ABI) formula for NAMA.

Global talks to free up trade in services, a key part of the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) Doha round, moved up a gear on Tuesday with leading states putting in demands for liberalisation.