Business Day (South Africa)| By John Fraser | July 9, 2003
PREPARATIONS for the World Trade Organisation's (WTO's) meeting in Mexico are far from being finalised and the meeting could be as disastrous as Seattle in 1999, the Commonwealth Business Council has warned.
This is contained in a new report on the WTO ministerial meeting to be held in Cancun, Mexico in September, which is to be attended by Trade and Industry Minister Alec Erwin and his counterparts from around the world. The meeting had been scheduled to anchor progress in the WTO's Doha development round, which was launched in November 2001. "Key decisions have to be made at the WTO's fifth ministerial conference in Cancun, but a Seattle-style disaster looms on the horizon," the report warns.
"This would cripple the WTO for some time to come."
The report sketches three scenarios. The first is an optimistic one, in which important decisions are taken in the run up to the Cancun meeting: "Cancun is a success and the round is completed by the target date of end 2004."
The "nightmare scenario" would lead to "a breakdown a la Seattle. The WTO is crippled and attention shifts quickly to bilateral and regional free trade area agreements."
The third scenario, which most observers would consider the most likely, would involve Cancun being used as "a stocktaking exercise and a holding operation."
This scenario would involve a two-year extension of the negotiations "to allow time for key political decisions, especially on agriculture".
The report notes that the Doha round could be of major benefit to developing nations. "These countries desperately need to promote liberal trade policies at home, coupled with deep-seated institutional reforms, if they are to drag their most unfortunate and repressed citizens out of poverty and give them decent life chances."Business Day (South Africa)| By John Fraser:
