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Price of WTO meet failure is too high, warns Mike Moore

Warning that failure at Doha ministerial meeting would shift trade focus from Geneva, WTO director general Mike Moore on Monday said the conference in November should agree to launch an ambitious work programme to send 'strong signal' to the 142 member governments.

"I have no illusions as to the challenge ahead. But the price of failure is too high," he said in an open letter to journalists ahead of the ministerial meeting beginning on November 9.

"Finding a satisfactory compromise on issues like implementation, patentability of essential medicines, agriculture, the environment, investment and competitions will not be easy to achieve. But find it we must," he said, admitting that there were differences between developed and developing countries on the launch of new programme.

Not all member governments favour embarking on an ambitious work programme and "I have been criticised for calling on members to begin a broad-based work programme at Doha," he said.

"I accept differences of view on this point, but it's important not to lose sight of the fact that on matters of real substance, the only way to change the rules and workings of WTO is through negotiations. This is after all a negotiating forum," he said.

Unless all members are fully engaged in the process of negotiation, "we run the risk of creating new implementation problems," Moore said adding any negotiations launched in Doha cannot be completed if some members feel marginalised from the process.

Agreeing that developing countries have not received all the benefits they expected from the Uruguay Round and that the WTO should do better for them, Moore wondered whether substantive changes to rules on agriculture, textiles or trade remedies could be brought about without negotiations.

ut "we need to face up to the fact that there are things in our organisation that could work better. Not all our critics are wrong," he said adding, WTO needed to a better job for assuring that WTO rules are not a threat to preservation of the environment.

He also said WTO needed to work to reduce imbalances in a global agricultural system, which results in rich countries spending roughly one billion dollar a day in subsidies which were often wasteful and trade distorting.

Reducing these subsidies and paring back the barriers to imports from developing countries would result in benefits to the developing countries equal to three times the level of official development assistance provided by rich countries, he said.

Moore said the problems regarding dispute settlement system of WTO too would have to be addressed.

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