The first draft of a declaration for the Doha Round Hong Kong meeting of WTO member trade ministers was released today: DOHA WORK PROGRAMME. Preparations for the Sixth Session of the Ministerial Conference. Draft Ministerial Text (Nov 26).
The draft has about 7.5 pages of innocuous text, and annexes on agriculture, market access for non-agricultural products, services, rules (rules governing anti-dumping, countervailing subsidies, regional trade agreements), and trade facilitation.
The content is in the annexes, but these are reports on the state of play in the negotiations in the negotiating groups for the different issues.
All this is a long way from the set of "modalities" - relatively detailed numbers and schedules for implementation - that it had been hoped would be available for the Hong Kong meeting.
Key ministers are now considering a further ministerial meeting in early 2006.
Here's some early news coverage: WTO Lays Out Draft for Hong Kong Summit (AP via Forbes, Nov 26).
This week's issue of Bridges provides very helpful context: Five Ministers Aiming For Doha Round Road Map In Hong Kong. (Nov 23). This story on the report on agricultural negotiations - incorporated as Annex A to the draft, is also helpful: Agriculture: Chair Reports on Status Quo With a View to Hong Kong.
Bridges suggests that in Hong Kong, ministers will be preparing a "road map" for the remaining negotiations. It's not clear to me exactly what that means. Peter Gallagher sees the Hong Kong meetings now as a beauty contest for offers (The Hong Kong beauty parade - Nov 24) where parties will make offers that are conditional on actions by others and where they will try to make their existing conditional offers look as attractive as possible, but where there will be little pressure to make conditional offers final.
What happens between now and Hong Kong?
Senior trade officials from several countries are set to meet over the next two weeks to discuss what they might successfully agree on in Hong Kong. The five ministers who met on 22 November are planning to get together again next week, possibly in Brussels or Geneva. A summit of G-90 ministers (encompassing African, Caribbean, Pacific, and least-developed country Members) is planned for the same time. African trade ministers kicked off a meeting in Arusha, Tanzania on 23 November, where they will try to articulate a common position on commodities.
Geneva delegations will examine Lamy's comprehensive draft text first at a 30 November meeting of the Trade Negotiations Committee and then at a 1-2 December session of the General Council. The Ministerial Conference gets underway on 13 December.
And in the background is the one deadline that can't be fudged:
Governments are continuing to push for finishing the round by the end of 2006 because US President George W. Bush's "fast track" ability to put a trade agreement to Congress for a simple yes-or-no vote without the risk of major amendment is set to expire in mid-2007.
Revised 9:45 PM, Nov 26
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