The Director General of WTO/ Pascal Lamy, in his report to the General Council on December 17, 2009 sated that the members should assess the status of negotiations (stocktaking) during the last week of March to explore whether the conclusion of the Doha Round in 2010 is "doable". He also expressed his hope that 2010 will be the cornerstone of creating a safe the global economy, which requires all members to unite together to reach an agreement to conclude the Doha Round.
He also displayed the overall progress of the Doha negotiations that have been reached out in the senior official meetings lately held, as well as, the road map for these negotiations during the first months of 2010.
With regard to the senior officials meetings that took place during the second week of December 2009, the agriculture negotiations experienced a progress regarding to the modalities .There was also a massive technical work done undertaken by members on the subject of the special safeguard mechanism (SSM) as well as tariff simplification. Moreover,work on the modalities will be completed in addition to the bracketed issues during the second half of the month of January.
As for the negotiations on industrial goods, there has been a significant progress on the issue of non-tariff barriers which is still under discussion in a focused and detailed way. There will be follow-up discussions during the first week of February to reach an outcome by January 20, 2010.
For Services negotiations (Enchilada), there have been discussions on various topics, like the issue of domestic regulations, where, members discussed the proposed text. In addition, a special session will be held during the second half of January 2010 to discuss the draft text for modalities for the proposed waiver granted to the least developed countries (LDCs).
The meetings of the Rules Committee were so constructive and effective, where the work program proposed by the Chairman of the Committee was welcomed by most of the members. Several meetings were held to discuss anti-dumping, horizontal subsidies and fisheries subsidies. Besides, members have already initiated the review of the proposed text. Several meetings will be held during January and February to complete the first revision of the proposed text and of any new proposals concerning subsidies and fisheries subsidies.
No progress took place in the negotiations on Regional Trade Agreements in 2009. But the Chairman of the Committee discussed with group of members ways to push forward negotiations on this issue during the meetings of senior officials on the basic work that had been done regarding the transparency mechanism for Regional Trade Agreements.
For the special and differential treatment issue, discussions focused on the monitoring mechanism based on what has been achieved so far in this regard. The discussions will be completed on these basis during the upcoming period. The non-paper, which had been prepared to be the focus of the Committee's work program during the coming period, had been reviewed in the Special Session, while taking into account new proposals submitted by members.
Regarding the trade and environment negotiations, there was a general consensus among members on the work program and time frames enclosed which was adopted on October 2009. Concerning the paragraph on the relationship between World Trade Organization and multilateral environmental Agreements, members agree to complete the negotiations based on the proposals on the table of the negotiations. Members will pursue an agreement by February 20, 2010 on environmental goods of common interest as well as Cross cutting issues.
On the issue of trade facilitation, a consolidated document was issued (TN/TF/W/165) reflecting the agreed upon draft for trade facilitation agreement, but there is more work needed to be done during the coming period to conclude the agreement.
Concerning the IPR negotiations, the Special Session of the TRIPS Council held a meeting on November 27, 2009 to discuss the multilateral register of geographical indications for wines and spirits. The Chairman circulated a document number (TN/IP/19) that included the negotiating positions and ways to push the negotiations forward through five bases for the work program during the coming period. The General Council has also held numerous consultations with a group of members to discuss ways and views on how to complete negotiations during the first week of February. Mr. Lamy also urged members to continue consultations on the relationship between the TRIPS and the Convention on Biological Diversity, as well as, the extension of the additional level of protection of geographical indications protection for wines and spirits to other goods.
Concerning the road map for the negotiations during the coming period, Mr. Lamy pointed out five necessary elements summarized as follows:
First: consultations should be intensified on bilateral, trilateral or quadrilateral basis as soon as possible in 2010, so that the rest of the members could share the fruits of these consultations and thereby strengthen the multilateral negotiations.
Second: the heads of the negotiating groups have to prepare schedules for their activities during the period from January to February 2010, as early as possible, to provide a high degree of transparency with regard to work within those groups.
Thirdly: Meetings on the level of senior officials should be continued to begin on February 15, followed by March 22 so that the core work of these groups is that of the negotiating groups.
Fourth: Members should keep the last week of March 2010 to assess the negotiations (stocktaking) in order to assess whether the 2010 can still be “doable”.
