Archive - 2006 - Article

A DEAL on 'sensitive products' is one of the keys to unlocking progress in World Trade Organization talks on market access, Canada's lead agricultural negotiator Steve Verheul said recently.

In the context of the current negotiations on trade facilitation, development must be the main objective and focus, said the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of developing countries in a proposal submitted to the WTO's Negotiating Group on Trade Facilitation.

Trade liberalization alone does not automatically lead to services growth and development in developing countries, and there is a need to establish necessary preconditions such as flanking policies and regulatory frameworks for liberalization to yield development-oriented results, according to a new UNCTAD paper.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-CA) this week said the U.S. should drop partners in free trade agreement negotiations if talks on those agreements are not progressing.

A revised one-page factsheet on US Congressional resistance to agriculture policy reform

Two papers from the Davos mini-Ministerial: simulations for agriculture and NAMA, and Sensitive products

Doha opened the door in 2001 for correcting the iniquities and imbalances in the WTO agreements and Hong Kong provided an opportunity in December 2005 to take concrete steps towards this end. But the opportunity has been totally lost. The WTO appears to be set on the usual path of developed countries' pressure tactics and developing countries' weak submission.

The commodities crisis continues to plague developing countries and international action, particularly by UNCTAD, has to be urgently taken to address it, according to several participants at the UNCTAD Commission on Trade in Goods and Services and Commodities which is meeting here this week.

Brazil has asked wealthy Western nations to call a special summit to try to ensure a global agreement on trade is met before an end-April deadline, Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said on Sunday.

The Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC) of the WTO met for the first time since the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference on 7 February, with its Chair Pascal Lamy urging WTO members to intensify negotiations if agreement is to conclude on schedule.