Trade Ministers Not Optimistic About WTO Talks
February 4, 2010 Reuters
Ministers from about 20 major economies held informal talks on the sidelines of the annual World Economic Forum meeting in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, but Egypt’s trade minister said they made little progress.
“I don’t think very much came out of this meeting unfortunately,” Rachid Mohamed Rachid said. “If we don’t have the participation at ministerial or even ambassador level from the United States, of course it doesn’t give us a positive signal,” he said.
Symbolizing the Obama administration’s reluctance to commit to an endgame in the long-running negotiations, the world’s biggest economy sent only a deputy ambassador who was not authorized to speak.
Leaders of the G20 grouping of major economies, including U.S. President Barack Obama, agreed in Pittsburgh last September on the goal of wrapping up the Doha round of World Trade Organization negotiations in 2010.
Rachid said there was very little prospect of meeting that goal, adding: “We are not optimistic, we are very concerned.”
Many participants say domestic politics and the impact of the financial crisis and high unemployment in the United States and Europe have made chances of an early trade deal more remote.
The long-running 153-nation talks collapsed in 2008 over a dispute between the United States, India and China on protection for farmers in developing countries. Other unresolved issues include cotton subsidies, trade in services and in environmental goods and services.
(Story found in original format here.)
GET THE NEWSLETTER TODAY!
