Articles

The WIPO meeting on a Development Agenda ended on 24 February evening with an agreement that the next session would discuss six major themes with a total of 111 proposals that have been identified for a Development Agenda for WIPO.

The plurilateral services negotiations that were launched at the WTO on 28 February by the major developed countries (joined by a handful of developing members) are clearly aimed at creating a new negotiating method to more effectively pressurize some emerging developing economies to open up many of their key services sectors to competition from the large multinational service enterprises.

Doha Development Agenda market access for industrials Chairman Don Stephenson on Friday issued a detailed work program to accelerate talks on the most difficult issues a formula for cutting tariffs, the treatment of unbound tariffs and flexibilities for developing countries (see related report this issue).

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

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

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.

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.

The United States today launched a new effort to jump start the WTO Services negotiations. Joining with like-minded developed and developing countries, the U.S. will push for a common set of liberalization objectives in services sectors key to global growth and development. Services are a significant and growing part of the U.S. economy as evidenced by the $56 billion surplus in services trade in 2005. Further, 8 of 10 U.S. jobs are in the services sector.

An agreement was reached among a number of countries to pursue common objectives in improving access to selected telecommunications markets around the globe. The markets selected reflect the interest of many countries to develop a modern telecommunications sector. There is a broad recognition that the opening up of telecommunications markets will bring significant benefits to customers. Foreign operators will bring with them - especially to developing countries - valuable technological knowledge acquired through their operations in their home markets. Enhanced competition brings down the overall cost of services and consumers enjoy higher quality, advanced services at affordable prices. The development of telecommunications markets promotes the performance of enterprises of all economic sectors as the cost of their operations will be reduced while speed in conducting business will be improved.