WTO SEES SUPPORT FOR POTENTIAL TRADE FACILITATION NEGOTIATION

WTO SEES SUPPORT FOR POTENTIAL TRADE FACILITATION NEGOTIATION    Roderick Abbott, deputy director-general of the World Trade Organization, said that he sees “broad international support” for potential negotiation on the simplification of international trade transactions, especially for developing country exporters.
   “We all want to simplify trade transactions, to reduce the complexity that arises when import procedures are different in one country from another, to lower transaction costs, and to assist especially exporters from developing countries to be able to find their way
through the maze of government regulations as painlessly as possible,” Abbott said in a speech in Geneva.
   Following the launch last year of a new round of multilateral trade negotiations in Doha, WTO members have worked on specific negotiating mandates and on other aspects not currently covered by negotiating mandates. Trade facilitation is one of the issues that does not currently have a specific mandate agreed.
   “While some of these matters remain highly controversial among WTO members, I believe it can be said that members are all broadly supportive of the general aims of the trade facilitation agenda,” Abbott said. There is “a reasonably good chance” that an agreement can be made at a forthcoming mid-term review in Cancun, Mexico, on a negotiating mandate, he added. This will be dependent on what Abbott described as “the game of linkages” — agreement on one sector being made conditional on progress or agreement in another.
   The WTO has scheduled a ministerial meeting, which takes place every two years, in Cancun on Sept. 10-14.
   In the discussions on trade facilitation, members are increasingly interested in the idea that enquiry points or trade desks would be established within each member’s administration, to assist in the implementation of any rules to be agreed, Abbott said.