Minister
of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade of Barbados Dame
Billie Miller was elected by the World Trade Organization
(WTO) General Council Friday (July 29) as a Vice-Chair
in the bureau of the Chair of the Sixth WTO Ministerial
Conference, to be held in Hong Kong this December.
Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology of Hong
Kong, China Mr. John Tsang was elected at the General
Council meeting to serve as Chair of the Ministerial
Conference.
Dame Billie Miller is one of three vice-chairpersons
to have been elected.
Director General of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating
Machinery (RNM) Ambassador Dr. Richard Bernal congratulated
the Senior Barbadian Minister on her election, noting
that “Minister Miller will provide strong leadership
in the Conference Chair’s bureau, in what will
be a crucial Ministerial for troubled Doha Round talks.”
The General Council was also informed Friday of the
four deputies that incoming WTO Director General Pascal
Lamy (who takes over September 1) has chosen. They hail
from Chile, Rwanda, India and the United States, respectively.
Their terms of office will begin October 1.
These announcements come against the backdrop of efforts
last week to reach an interim agreement for Doha Round
talks referred to as “First Approximations”,
which fell short.
Members struggled to bridge rifts, but ultimately consensus
could not be arrived at in key areas; and as a result
the process which was initiated following the Decision
adopted by the General Council on August 1, 2004 to
advance modalities for Doha Round talks stalemated.
There is uncertainty as to the way forward, as this
interim agreement was expected to be the basis for advancing
talks ahead of the looming December WTO Ministerial
Conference.
In the lead up to this month’s General Council
meeting, which had previously been seen as the occasion
to clinch “First Approximations”, various
WTO Members had signalled that it would be difficult
to arrive at agreement over “approximations”
(see RNM PRESS RELEASE 1005), negotiations for which
have been logjammed primarily over Agriculture and non-Agricultural
Market Access (NAMA) - especially over tariff-cutting
formulas for agricultural and industrial goods, but
also reduction commitments in trade-distorting domestic
support in respect of Agriculture.
As it has for some time now, movement in NAMA hinged
on progress in the contentious area of Agriculture in
last weekend’s consultations involving a dozen
key players - which never came. Over the course of those
few days, intense consultations took place in an effort
to bridge differences in the area of Agriculture, but
ultimately they broke down over the structure of the
formula itself. The Chair of Agriculture talks Tim Groser
(who is to be replaced August 1 by new New Zealand Ambassador
Crawford Falconer, the consensus candidate as Chair
of the agriculture negotiations and the Cotton Sub-Committee)
reportedly expressed doubts in the wake of last weekend’s
marathon consultations over whether those talks that
took into consideration a number of proposals could
go forward, in an attempt to prepare for “First
Approximations”. Early last week, both the Agriculture
and NAMA Chairs reported in two separate informal meetings
that the parties remained apart on the major issues.
The July Approximation was presented to last week’s
Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC) and subsequent General
Council meetings as ‘status reports.’ Ultimately,
the latter body had nothing to approve.
Despite the fact that the “First Approximations”
exercise has come up short, in his final report as TNC
Chairman WTO Director General Supachai Panitchpakdi
said to Members on July 28 that achieving a successful
Ministerial Conference this December is still possible,
provided they dedicate themselves to “a politically
engaged, results oriented, decision making mode of operation
immediately after the (summer) recess.”
While
he endorsed Dr. Supachai’s call for the level
of ambition for the Hong Kong Ministerial to remain
high, Ambassador Bernal was more circumspect about
the outcome of last week’s high-level meetings,
characterizing the current state-of-affairs as “disappointing,
but not altogether unexpected.” He cautioned
that developments in relation to Geneva-based talks
over the last few days do not auger well for December’s
Ministerial, but stressed that given the nature of
the outcome, “Members perhaps have a clearer
idea of the political decisions that have to be made
on the technical issues at the heart of areas like
Agriculture that are holding up momentum, in order
to revive talks and for negotiations on modalities
to progress meaningfully in advance of December.”
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