WTO Doha Round Negotiations Resume
Bern, 29.01.2011 - At the invitation of Federal Councillor Johann N. Schneider-Ammann, 24 Ministers in charge of WTO affairs as well as WTO Director General Pascal Lamy met in Davos, Switzerland, today. The purpose of the meeting was to intensify work on the Doha Round in what should be the start of the endgame.
The exchanges between Ministers showed their willingness to work toward a comprehensive and balanced conclusion of the Doha Round. WTO Members are all facing domestic constraints, be it regarding specific sectors, institutional processes, elections or public opinion.
Ministers noted with satisfaction that by now all negotiating groups were active and making progress and agreed that negotiating texts in all areas of the Doha negotiations by April and overall agreement on the package by July were necessary steps in order to conclude the Doha Round in 2011.
Ministers agreed that bilateral and plurilateral negotiations need to be seriously accelerated, the gaps in the positions need to be bridged and divergences need to be drastically reduced. This has to happen in parallel to the multilateral negotiations.
For Federal Councillor Johann N. Schneider-Ammann three things are needed to bring Doha to a successful end: clarity about the end result, willingness to conclude and mutual trust. Time has come not only to ask what each Member can get, but also what one can give, what the other can realistically deliver and what really matters to each Member.
Before today's informal Ministerial Meeting on Doha, Federal Councillor Johann N. Schneider-Ammann met with Ministers of Japan, Norway and Korea, representing Members of the G10 coalition of net food importing countries to discuss the agriculture negotiations.
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