Coalition building focus at WTO meet

Developing countries have stressed on evolving a high-level cohesion among themselves for achieving development objectives at the ongoing WTO negotiations. Trade representatives of Mexico, Cuba, Egypt, Nigeria, Zambia, Pakistan and China among others favoured the coalition-building initiative for fulfilling development goals of Doha agenda at a meeting convened by India and serviced by UNCTAD in Geneva, recently.

The meeting, chaired by India and addressed by Rubens Ricupero, UNCTAD Secretary General, and Supachai Panitchpakdi, Director General of WTO, underlined the need for a coordinated approach amongst themselves and a clear strategy in respect of their offensive and defensive interests along with identification of options in different negotiating scenarios. Calling for the progress on both the process and substance of negotiations, the participants proposed categorisation of issues into three pillars to ensure success of WTO’s Cancun meeting.