All about Doha round of WTO…Reply to Mr Rajesh

As requested by Mr Rajesh, I am trying my best to present the complex issue of Doha round in simplified manner……
WTO got in to shape after the Uruguay Round [1986-93] under the system of GATT [general agreement on tariffs and trade] in Jan 1995…..GATT came in to existence in 1948 and India was a founder member of it…..Uruguay round was the 8th round of discussion under GATT…[the term ‘round’ indicates the negotiations entered around a specific set of issues over a period of few year leading to agreement among members]….in brief Uruguay round was collapsed due to differences between developed and developing nations thus DG of GATT Mr Arthur Dunkel came out with a compilation to break the deadlock and finally signed by the member nations in the form of Marrakesh Treaty….It includes the issues of :
[1] Market access
[2] Agriculture
[3] Textiles
[4]TRIMS [trade related investment measures]
[5]TRIPS [trade related intellectual property rights]
[6] Trade in services
[7] Institutional matters
Since 1995, WTO began its work and held so far 7 rounds of discussions known as ministerial conference at Singapore, Geneva, Seattle, Doha [capital of Qatar], Cancun [Mexico] and Hongkong and Geneva…..Singapore issue includes labour standard, investment & competition, IT and international trade in textiles, etc….India opposed the inclusion of labour issues in WTO which it claimed the ambit of ILO….the four major issue outlined in Singapore round are:
[1]Trade facilitation [Developing nations agree on it as it includes procedural matter]
[2]Competition policy
[3] Transparency in government procurement
[4] Investment
Geneva and Seattle meet did not yield any result due to large differences between developed and developing block…It is in fact the fight between vested interest of two opposing block….finally Doha round of trade talks began in 2001….It is also called the Doha development round as it promised to address the issues that are important to developing nations like India…..Developing countries believed that the issue of AOA [ agreement on agriculture which includes ‘(1)domestic support ‘in the form of Green box, Amber box which is trade distorting and Blue box (2)export subsidies and (3)market access], TRIPS and GATS [general agreement on trade in services] are unfavorable to them and have pro developed bias.
Thus to pacify developing nations Doha round aims at further liberalization of international trade in Agriculture, Industry and services….Developing nations demand to slash the agricultural subsidies by US and reduction in tariffs on agriculture goods by EU…since developing nations has cost effective agriculture as compared to developed but due to subsidies developing nations are not able to export to developed nations…….while developed nations demands the opening up of the market of developing nations under NAMA i.e. non agricultural goods and market access where developed has upper edge…..Besides, developed nations also demand liberalization of services sector in the fields of education, legal advice and insurance…..
Due to these competeting claims and conflict of interest, Doha round is still not complete and successive ministerial conference at Cancun, Hong Kong and Geneva were collapsed as poor countries are not willing to heed the demands of developed nations on the issue of NAMA till their demand on agriculture subsidy and tariff cut were met…….Due to the failure of successive WTO talks, countries are now prefering to have PTA [preferrential trade agreement], FTA[ free trade area] or RTA[regional trade area], etc as an alternative trade arrangement till the finalisation of WTO talk.
I hope, I am successful in clearing the cloud of confusion on Doha round and now you will be able to understand the Doha round fully….further query is welcome…keep blogging….