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After G20 and APEC, it's now or never for Doha

(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-11-27 07:45

What the world needs to get out of an extended period of economic contraction is more trade, less protectionism. Government stimulus spending to stoke demand is also recommended.

This sounds like mouthing a platitude. It will be if fearful nations all think local and beggar one another into market stagnation. There just is a chance that the deepening crisis the world is sinking into will draw collectively from mercantile nations the correct policy response this time.

Trade is forever. Pump-priming measures, though important, bring one-shot relief. Undeniably, all energies should be expended on winning the trade argument.

Just over a week ago, the G20 at its meeting in Washington made that "more trade" declaration. Its most useful contribution was not making a start at designing financial oversight of new fangled investment products, as this would take a lot more discussion, but advocating market opening measures, such as through the Doha Round that has stalled after seven years of talking.

Over the weekend, in Lima, the 21 economies of APEC, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, also placed the Doha Round and an end to market protections at the top of its action lines. Membership of the G20 and APEC overlaps to a degree, with nine G20 members also in APEC.

What is notable is that the groupings bring together the top trading nations and blocs - North and South America, China, Japan, Europe, South Korea, South Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania. Most of Africa is excluded, all the more reason to help the world's poor through an inclusive arrangement.

It seems the world community is in agreement about what needs to be done. There is not a more opportune time than now, the intersection of the worst financial and economic crises in many decades, for the World Trade Organization to get the Doha Round concluded.

Its chief, Mr Pascal Lamy, is hesitant about summoning trade ministers to Geneva for a wrap-up session unless he sees evidence of the will to compromise. With the imprimatur of the G20 and APEC declarations, he now has the brief to have the principal disputants narrow the remaining differences on agricultural trade and manufactures. Once the stronger economies begin to mend, possibly by the end of 2010, the urgency will have passed. For Doha, it's now or never.

It is fortuitous the enveloping global recession has made APEC, which had been drifting, useful again as a trade forum. People may have forgotten trade was its founding motivation in 1989. With export-dependent Singapore taking over as APEC chair next year, the trade agenda could not have a better facilitator to do more prodding.

The Straits Times/Asia News Network

(China Daily 11/27/2008 page9)