An Urgent Time for Global Trade

After a meeting of top industrialized nations in Russia last week for the G8 conference, the resolve to unblock the troubled Doha round of talks will again be tested when the negotiators meet in Geneva on Sunday, with World Trade Organization head Pascal Lamy stating the main players in the talks can only gain credibility if they act by compromising with specific trade figures.

"The time for delay is over. If Members are serious about creating a more open, equitable and relevant trading system — that's what they say and I believe them when they say this — there is no option but to move now.”

The G8 meeting, which ended on July 17th, was overshadowed last week by not only an ongoing crisis in the Middle East , but also stalled trade talks within the World Trade organization, which continue amid long-standing disagreements over tariffs and subsidies between the United States and European Union.

Basically, the goal of the talks involves the US cutting farm subsidies, the EU offering more access for agricultural imports, and emerging economies such as Brazil and India reducing tariffs on manufactured goods. The real potential lies in lowering tariff barriers to improve market access for all nations.

Russia hosted the summit as the G8 group’s president for this year. The main themes on the formal agenda included energy security, coping with infectious diseases, and education, plus a discussion of current topics such as the nuclear threats from North Korea and Iran and the dire state of the Doha round of world trade talks.

However, the call to conclude the negotiations of the WTO's Doha Development Agenda (DDA) reached an impasse, after negotiators missed yet another deadline in June. The resolve of the World leaders will be put to test to unblock Doha round of trade talks at this weekend's meeting of trade powers, Susan Schwab, U.S. chief negotiator said on Tuesday.

"We should see the impact of the G8 leaders' commitment by this weekend," U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab told journalists after a meeting at the WTO's Geneva base.

The 149-nation trade round, which bears the name of the Qatari capital where it began in late 2001, was meant to boost growth by yielding a wide-ranging treaty that will tear down trade barriers such as subsidies and customs duties and lift millions out of poverty in the developing world. It is already well behind schedule. The talks also include complex issues such as anti-dumping rules and help for poorer states.

The round was meant to end in 2004, but that target was later pushed back to December 2006.