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APEC ministers committed to Doha Rround negotiations

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-11-12 16:44

SINGAPORE: APEC ministers said Thursday here that APEC remains "determined to ensure an ambitious and balanced conclusion to the Doha Round in 2010."

"To this end, we must translate recent political commitments into tangible progress in the negotiations," a joint statement by APEC Foreign and Trade ministers and representatives said.  

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After a two-day meeting, the senior officials agreed to " accelerate efforts to advance into the endgame negotiations in Agriculture and Non-Agricultural Market Access, and advance in parallel Services, Rules, Trade Facilitation and all other remaining issues" to reach the 2010 target.

They also called for  "greater substantive engagement at all levels," and agree to "direct our officials to exercise pragmatism and maximum flexibility on all issues" to narrow gaps.  

The Doha Round of trade talks was launched by the World Trade Organization (WTO) at its ministerial conference held in Doha, Qatar in 2001 with an aim to help poor nations hurdle barriers in global trade and prosper through the free flow of goods.  

The initial plan is to wrap up the Doha Round in 2005 but failure of WTO's 153 members to reach a deal pushed back the schedule. Over the past four years, new deadlines were set and broken. World leaders lately vowed to wrap up the long-running Doha trade talks in 2010.  

In fact, 80 percent of the talks have been concluded but agriculture remains as the last stumbling stone. Developing countries can not get the US and Europe to cut domestic farm subsidies as much as they want while the richer economies fail to persuade poorer countries to further open up their service markets, including banking and telecommunications, to international competitors.  

WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy last month warned that if negotiations did not pick up, the 2010 deadline might be missed again.