The Doha Development Round talks at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) have restarted in earnest, following their suspension last summer, WTO director general Pascal Lamy announced yesterday (7 February).
Speaking to the WTO general council in Geneva, he said: “We have resumed our negotiations fully across the board”, notably the food trade talks for which tactics were agreed at the recent Davos World Economic Forum.
Lamy had been working with talks chairs for agriculture, services, and others. “The process here will continue to be bottom up, inclusive and transparent,” he said.
However, unlike last year, the director general refused to set ‘false deadlines’. “We are now writing the last chapter of this long, and sometimes tortuous, story,” he added.
Lamy was confident that the talks would be successful: “Political conditions are now more favourable for the conclusion of the round than they have been for a long time. Political leaders around the world clearly want us to get fully back to business.”
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