Participating countries at the tenth WTO Ministerial conference in Davos can’t agree on one of the key issues on the agenda – whether to continue the Doha round or to reformat the agenda of the WTO. The negotiations on this issue will continue, said the head of Ministry of economic development Alexei Ulyukayev.
DAVOS, 23 Nov –. Participants in the informal Ministerial meeting of the WTO in Davos discussed Tuesday the implementation of the agreements reached at the Ministerial conference in Nairobi in December — among them the facilitation of international trade rules, the elimination of export subsidies and export credits, over the future of the Doha round of the country again took the time to think, told journalists the Minister of economic development of Russia Alexey Ulyukayev.
Participating countries at the tenth WTO Ministerial conference agreed on the prohibition of agricultural export subsidies — an item that for many years remained a stumbling block between developed and developing economies. However, another key issue on the agenda is whether to continue the Doha round or to reformat the agenda of the WTO remain unresolved, the negotiations will continue.
“A month passed after the Ministerial meeting in Nairobi, and it is time to take stock, to assess what happened and to chart the way forward. Here all agreed that the mechanism of Ministerial meetings showed that he can cope with a very difficult task,” — said Ulyukayev.
According to the Minister, now each of the member countries of the WTO must be ratified at the national level, the documents on implementation of the decisions of the conference in Nairobi on facilitation mechanisms and the establishment of transparent rules of global trade.
Ulyukayev expects Russia will make it to the end of January. “We just are in the process of ratification, in December the government submitted documents to the state Duma, hopefully, before the end of this month we, too, will ratify and will continue to take practical steps,” the Minister explained.
Timeout Doha round
Ulyukayev also said that the meeting in Davos and discussed the prospects of the Doha agenda.
Developed countries led by the US and EU are in favour of the new format of the WTO, countries with developing economies, such as India and China, for the continuation of the Doha round. This round, adopted in 2001, aims to resolve trade conflicts between countries with different levels of economic development and includes about 20 courses, the main ones are the negotiations on market access for goods and services, improvement of rules of trade and competition in the market of agricultural exports.
“While all the participants spoke about the need to take some time to reflect on the situation, yet are we full of the Doha agenda to work out or we change, exclude from points that are clearly uncompromising, which for many years had no result, and probably will not in the future,” he said.
Many things connected with the trade of goods first of all, the Minister explained.
“Conversely, we probably have the agenda to include those things that are fundamentally relevant: it e-Commerce, intellectual property right, clean green economy, promoting her”, — says the head of the Ministry of economic development. According to him the area of electronic Commerce is very sensitive — you need to use the opportunities it brings.
According to him, to reflect on Doha-format have time until around summer, and then the negotiators in Geneva should have a clear mandate from their governments to this time for the year and a half, until the next Ministerial meeting remain, fill it with the right agenda, the Minister said. The WTO Ministerial conference is held once in two years.
According to Ulyukayev, the agenda of the Doha round could change considerably.
“We need an agenda to achieve results. I believe that the agenda of the Doha round can quite radically change just because a different economic reality for the past decade, the agenda need to change, simplify and make it more relevant, but there is no consensus”, — concluded the Minister.
