Archive - Dec 2005 - Article

The second draft Ministerial Text that was submitted to WTO Members this evening

In the remaining days before the World Trade Organization's Hong Kong trade ministerial conference, the United States aims to keep the focus on agriculture especially the market access pillar which lies at the heart of the four year old trade negotiations

On 30 November, Honduras and Panama filed a complaint with the WTO against the new customs duty imposed by the EU on banana imports from 1 January 2006

The United States' top trade envoy said Thursday it's unlikely negotiators will settle a farm-subsidy deadlock at a world trade summit this month.

Theme: 'The Hong Kong Ministerial Text: a failure for development'

Trade unions and civil society organizations presented a detailed letter to World Trade Organization (WTO) Director General Pascal Lamy on Wednesday explaining how the WTO services negotiations have been undemocratic and undermining the consensus mode of decision-making.

The texts were produced on the 29th and 30th November, respectively, and are an attempt to draft more specific language based on the reports from the Chairs of Agriculture and NAMA negotiations.

The draft Ministerial text put forward on 26 November by the WTO Director-General and the General Council chair received, at the informal heads of delegation meeting on Monday, some pleasantries over the so-called 'bottom up' approach on how the text was put together, with several developing countries however highlighting the fact that many parts of the current draft did not enjoy the agreement of all members.

The recent proposals by some major developed countries in the WTO threaten the developmental content of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) and it is thus timely to reclaim the development content of the Round, nine developing countries said

The African Union Conference of Trade Ministers ended on 24 November evening after a session in which the Ministers discussed their strategy for the WTO's Hong Kong Ministerial Conference.