WTO: Director General Pascal Lamy on Fisheries Subsidies (3)

Fisheries subsidies is becoming of the preferred marketing tools to promote the Doha Round. Director General Lamy is of those that mentions this negotiating subject as one of the main reasons why the Doha Round deserves to be concluded.

I copy here an extract of his speech, delivered to the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington D.C. on 24 April 2009.

"Let me be very frank with you: I have been puzzled by such comments. But many WTO members have been angered.

Take the African cotton producers who are awaiting the conclusion of the Doha Round to see cuts in trade distorting cotton subsidies. Or those who are awaiting the elimination of current export subsidies on dairy.

Take also the negotiations on climate-friendly goods and services which is part of the Doha Round. Here is a chapter with a huge economic but also job creating potential. The Obama administration has committed itself to reducing US greenhouse gas emissions and to making the United States a leader on climate change. A successful Doha Round could deliver a package of open markets for environmental goods and services. A more open trade in this sector will increase the availability, and lower the cost, of climate-friendly goods, services and technologies. This outcome would complement a much-needed climate change agreement at Copenhagen later this year.

Take also fishery subsidies where the Doha Round could create the first international agreement aimed at reducing wasteful government support for activities that deplete the world’s oceans of one of its vital resources.

Not to mention regional trade agreements or rules of origin, already there since the Tokyo Round, which are part of the Doha menu and which are often quoted by economic operators as necessitating clearer WTO rules."

What I miss in this speech is a reference to the fact that a number of WTO Members, albeit for different reasons, consider that new rules on anti-dumping (a subject under the "Rules" chapter) are also a key negotiating issue in the ongoing round.

Here are the links with Mr Lamy's speech:

http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/sppl_e/sppl122_e.htm

http://www.iie.com/events/event_detail.cfm?EventID=113