Doha Round
Doha Development Round
Launched at the WTO’s Fourth Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar, in November 2001, the Doha Round is the latest round of trade negotiations among the WTO membership. Its aim is to achieve major reform of the international trading system through the introduction of lower trade barriers and revised trade rules. The Round is also known semi-officially as the Doha Development Agenda as a fundamental objective is to improve the trading prospects of developing countries.
The Doha Ministerial Declaration provided the mandate for the negotiations, including on agriculture, services and an intellectual property topic, which began earlier. The work programme covers about 20 areas of trade.
Negotiations that have been suspended in July, 2006 have regained momentum in the beginning of 2007 and particularly with the improvement in the agricultural and non-agricultural market access (NAMA) negotiations, draft provisions on reduction commitments have been formulated to a great extent.
Since the beginning of the year 2009, a series of meetings have been organized in order to find solutions for the problematic areas concerning the determination of negotiating modalities in agriculture and NAMA. Unfortunately, the negotiations were shadowed by the initiative taken by the WTO to combat “protectionism” (which has risen due to the global economic crisis), and tangible improvement has not been possible. Despite numerous calls from significant economic and commercial multilateral actors, for the conclusion of the Round in 2011, it is a fact that, the mostly-required political will has been put to the backburner when compared with economic challenges faced by national governments.
Against this backdrop, it is evidently understood despite full engagement and intensified efforts to conclude the Doha Development Agenda on the basis of single undertaking principle, it is unlikely that all elements of the Doha Development Round could be concluded simultaneously
Launched at the WTO’s Fourth Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar, in November 2001, the Doha Round is the latest round of trade negotiations among the WTO membership. Its aim is to achieve major reform of the international trading system through the introduction of lower trade barriers and revised trade rules. The Round is also known semi-officially as the Doha Development Agenda as a fundamental objective is to improve the trading prospects of developing countries.
The Doha Ministerial Declaration provided the mandate for the negotiations, including on agriculture, services and an intellectual property topic, which began earlier. The work programme covers about 20 areas of trade.
Negotiations that have been suspended in July, 2006 have regained momentum in the beginning of 2007 and particularly with the improvement in the agricultural and non-agricultural market access (NAMA) negotiations, draft provisions on reduction commitments have been formulated to a great extent.
Since the beginning of the year 2009, a series of meetings have been organized in order to find solutions for the problematic areas concerning the determination of negotiating modalities in agriculture and NAMA. Unfortunately, the negotiations were shadowed by the initiative taken by the WTO to combat “protectionism” (which has risen due to the global economic crisis), and tangible improvement has not been possible. Despite numerous calls from significant economic and commercial multilateral actors, for the conclusion of the Round in 2011, it is a fact that, the mostly-required political will has been put to the backburner when compared with economic challenges faced by national governments.
Against this backdrop, it is evidently understood despite full engagement and intensified efforts to conclude the Doha Development Agenda on the basis of single undertaking principle, it is unlikely that all elements of the Doha Development Round could be concluded simultaneously