SUSPENSION OF THE DOHA ROUND NEGOTIATIONS

On Thursday, 27 July 2006 WTO nations formally endorsed the suspension of the Doha Round negotiations. The decision came after a meeting of the six key trading powers collapsed on Monday due to differences over farming and manufactured goods, indicating the total failure of the five-years efforts to reach a multilateral free trade accord.
The main blockage was on agriculture, with the United States and EU trading accusations of inflexibility on the key stumbling block of farm subsidies. Top officials from the EU, Brazil and India lined up to accuse the U.S. of not cutting deeper handouts to U.S. farmers, while Washington insisted that developing countries had to offer much more on industrial access. Because of the gaps on agriculture were so wide, the issue of industrial market access, which mainly involves major developing nations, was even not discussed during the meeting.
In the opinion of Mr Pascal Lamy, the failure would also send out a strong negative signal for the future of the world economy and the danger of a resurgence of protectionism at a time when the pace of globalization is weighing heavily on the social and economic stability of many countries.

Source: Peoples Daily online, AgNews