Agence France Presse | November 14, 2001
DOHA - WTO ministers approved the launch here Wednesday of a new round of talks aimed at lowering trade barriers and sparking a recovery in a faltering world economy.
Ministers from the 142-member World Trade Organization backed the new round at the end of a gruelling six days of bargaining here in the Qatari capital Doha.
Relieved delegates broke into broad smiles and applauded heartily as Qatari Economy and Commerce Minister Youssef Kamal and chairman of the conference banged a gavel to signal that the new round had been approved by consensus. "The past five days have seen a tremendous amount of commitment by all delegations," he said.
Takeo Hiranuma, Japan's minister of economy, trade and industry, linked the agreement here to the September 11 suicide attacks in the United States.
"With the growing uncertainty and instabilty in the global economy following the tragic events of September 11, I am extremely happy that we can send out a positive message to the world."
The cycle of negotiations called for in the text endorsed here -- in a sumptuous Gulf-side hotel -- would be wrapped up by January 1, 2005 and would ease restrictions on the flow of goods and services across nartional boaders.
The WTO estimates that if all barriers to trade were removed the world economy would be enriched by some 1.9 trillion dollars, the equivalent of adding two Chinas to the global financial network.
Agreement here did not come easy, as delegations clung to entrenched national positions until the last minute.
A major break came in the early hours of Wednesday when negotiators managed to mollify fierce European Union objections to language in the text calling for the phasing out of agricultural export subsidies.
Until then the row between the EU on the one hand and the United States and an alliance of agricultural exporting countries known as the Cairns Group on the other had threatened to wreck the conference -- just as it did two years ago when the WTO staged a similar conference in Seattle.
Indeed, the debacle in Seattle loomed large here, with delegates determined to leave Doha with a deal in hand.
The stakes this time around were of course far higher than they were two years ago. The Doha conference was called as three of the world's most powerful economies -- the United States, Germany and Japan -- appear to be rushing headlong into recession, a slide exacerbated by the September attacks in the United States.
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