Search the Internet          Tips  Sites: Finance, Investment

Trade ministers must make hard decisions: WTO chief

Ministers from the World Trade Organisation's 142 member countries who meet in Qatar in two weeks must make 'hard decisions' on the future of the global economy, according to the trade body's chief Mike Moore.

But he said that after months of negotiations between envoys in Geneva and a series of smaller ministerial gatherings in key regions, he could not predict whether the long-debated new trade round would be launched.

"Right now, I can't call it," he said in an interview in his lake-view office late on Wednesday as two floors away diplomats argued over the declarations to be issued by ministers at their conference on November 9-13.

"It's certainly not a done deal."

Moore, like many economists and leaders of major powers, believes an agreement to start new talks on tearing down barriers to trade in goods and services would help keep the world from sliding into outright recession.

He also argues that developing countries, who fear being burdened with new commitments on opening up their markets, would be the major beneficiaries this time.

Looking weary after weeks of cajoling, drafting and arguing, the normally bluff 52-year-old former New Zealand premier and one-time bricklayer said he and colleagues would by Friday have done all they could to get an accord.

That effort will come in final drafts for documents, expected to emerge at WTO headquarters on Friday, to be signed at the gathering in the Qatari capital Doha.

TENSION AND DANGERS

"It will be our best endeavour. The ministers will have to work on that and make some hard decisions," said Moore, who steps down next August after three years as the WTO's third director-general since its started operations in 1995.

Moore said there were still 'strong tensions' in the negotiations on the texts, over which presides the seemingly unflappable Stuart Harbinson, current chairman of the trade body's General Council and Hong Kong's ambassador to the WTO.

What would happen if the ministers themselves failed, like their Geneva ambassadors so far, to agree?

Moore, speaking just before the WTO issued a report on Thursday confirming that this year world be the worst for international trade in two decades, said one outcome could be a surge in national and regional protectionism.

"There are bigger dangers now than there were before," he said, with an implicit glance back to Seattle in December 1999 when an earlier effort to launch a round crumbled before his eyes at the last WTO ministerial meeting.

"This time, the three biggest trading regions (North America, Europe and East Asia) could be in recession by the end of the year, according to reputable economists," Moore said.

"If we can't get a worthwhile global negotiation going, governments will be looking at negotiating regionally or bilaterally and it will be that much harder to resist populist pressure for protectionism.

"Then everyone will lose, especially the poorest."

CRISIS CHANGES TONE

Moore indicated that the hijackings and carnage in the United States last month -- which Thursday's WTO report predicted will intensify global trade woes -- had made him personally less sanguine about the fate of the round project.

"I think crises tend to focus the mind. Since September 11, I've been less patient with tactics and trivia," he said.

But he had not lost hope of a positive outcome from Doha -- which, if a round were launched, would leave a strong legacy for his nominated successor, Thailand's former deputy prime minister Supachai Panitchpakdi, to build on.

"Before Seattle, 'unacceptable' had become almost a mantra before any negotiations around here," he said. "I've heard the word a lot less this time."

Moore is not concerned by the verbal brickbats, and worse, hurled at the WTO by anti-globalisation activists, who are planning protests around the world during the Doha meeting.

"It's normal that people are interested, and passionate, even if they don't always get it right," he said.

"After all, trade is no longer what is was for so long -- something done between consenting adults in the privacy of the negotiating chamber."

Tell us what you think of this report