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G-20 Must Clear Doha Roadblock, WTO Says
Kelly Olsen | September 06, 2010

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Seoul. G-20 leaders should use their November summit to push for the conclusion of stalled global trade negotiations, the head of the World Trade Organization said on Monday.

WTO talks aimed at a new global commerce pact — the so-called Doha round, named after Qatar’s capital, where the negotiations were launched in 2001 — have been unable to secure a final deal amid disagreement between developed and emerging economies over trade rules applying to agricultural and industrial goods.

Pascal Lamy, director-general of the Geneva-based WTO, on Monday met with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon. South Korea is hosting the G-20 summit in Seoul on Nov. 11-12.

Lamy praised G-20 leaders for taking up the issue of the Doha round at their summit in Toronto in June and called for them to follow through in Seoul. He said he did not expect them to engage in line-by-line negotiations, but rather provide the political push for necessary compromises.

“They will all have to give a bit more in order to conclude the round, not much more, but a bit more,” he said.

The G-20, a grouping that includes both advanced and emerging economies, has taken over from the G-7 as the key forum for steering the global economy in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis.

Besides Toronto, it has also held summits in Washington, London and Pittsburgh, all of them after the economic crisis struck in 2008.

Lamy said there was no realistic chance of the trade liberalization talks being concluded this year, but suggested that it could happen in 2011. “Maybe next year, depending on progress made on substance,” he said.

He also said that despite signs of a slowing global economy, the WTO expected world trade volume to increase by about 10 percent this year after falling 12 percent last year following the worldwide financial meltdown.

“Trade is roughly as open today as it was at the beginning of this crisis,” he said, crediting the strength experienced this year to “the fact that trade has remained open.”

The global slump had led some analysts to fear that governments would erect commercial and trade barriers to defend their economies.

Lamy acknowledged that growth risks for the world economy were on the “downside rather than on the upside,” though not to the extent that the WTO needed to lower its forecast.

The 12.2 percent decline in world trade in 2009 was the biggest in more than 70 years, according to the WTO.

The organization said earlier this month that the value of world merchandise trade increased by about 25 percent during the first half of this year from the same period in 2009.
 

Associated Press