WTO: current stalemate in the Doha Round - "Two issues need to be resolved".

Last May the IISS (International Institute for Strategic Studies) held the Bahrain Global Forum in Manama, on the subject “Rebalancing Global Geo-economic Strategies for Security, Growth and Development”.

One of the key speeches (a special address) was delivered by Pascal Lamy on Sunday 16 May 2010. The title of this special address was “Reshuffling the Deck of Global Economic Cards". By the way, I did not find this speech in the WTO’s website (Speeches of the Director General).

While in his speech Mr Lamy did not explicitly refer to the negotiations on “Rules” nor to fisheries subsidies, there was talk about fisheries in the ensuing Q&A session.

A number of media echoed the contents of this Q&A session. One of the statements these media quoted was the following:

"Two issues need to be resolved: one is a technical negotiation over fishery subsidies, and the other is that the Obama administration needs the political will to take a Doha Round bill to Congress and get it passed," Lamy said.

Here are the links to the “Special Address” and to the Q&A question:

http://www.iiss.org/conferences/bahrain-global-forum/speeches/special-address/special-address-pascal-lamy/

http://www.iiss.org/conferences/bahrain-global-forum/speeches/special-address/qa-session/

And here the links to media discussing Mr Lamy’s statements:

http://www.business-standard.com/india/storypage.php?autono=395351

http://www.dynamicexport.com.au/news/world-trade-to-rise-up-to-10-percent-wto01042/

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jArswzvUuxWL8K9i3m3MfiLsi8rw

http://www.truthabouttrade.org/news/latest-news/16017-free-trade-resilient-during-world-crisis