S Venkitachalam

New Delhi, February 4: The World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) trade negotiations committee, which held its first session in Geneva on January 28 agreed to set up seven bodies for kicking off the next phase of negotiations, which are expected to continue till January 1, 05. These bodies will deal with agriculture, services, non-agricultural market access, rules, trade and environment, geographical indications for wines and spirits under the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (Trips) Agreement and reforming the dispute settlement understanding (DSU). Attended by all the WTO members, the meeting elected WTO director-general Mike Moore as trade negotiations committee’s ex-officio chairman and outlined the guidelines and procedures for the negotiations.

According to information reaching the commerce ministry from Geneva, negotiations on agriculture, services, environment, Trips and dispute settlement understanding will be conducted in special sessions of the regular committees and councils where they are discussed. New groups will be created for negotiations on non-agricultural market access and rules (anti-dumping). Trade negotiations committee and all other negotiating bodies and groups will operate under the authority of WTO General Council as mandated by the Doha ministerial conference.

Mr Moore, who will have the opportunity to chair the first few sessions of the trade negotiations committee in the WTO history, said that the outcome of the first meeting was yet another critically important step in maintaining the momentum that the WTO had generated with success at Doha, approval of a significant increase in WTO budget and re-deployment of some of the secretariat staff. “In establishing a sound basis for our work through these rules, governments have put in place the necessary framework for completing our negotiations within the tight deadline set by ministers,” Mr Moore said, adding that “much work remains to be done”.

Chairpersons for the other negotiating bodies and groups will be selected largely from among the WTO delegations based in Geneva in the coming weeks.

The members agreed that the negotiations would be conducted in the trade negotiations committee and the other bodies in a “transparent” manner in line with the best practices established over the past two years. Trade negotiations committee will report its work and that of the negotiating bodies and groups to the WTO General Council. It will monitor the calendar of meetings to ensure that, as far as possible, only one negotiating body meets at a time. Minutes of the meeting will be circulated as quickly as possible to the delegations and their governments about all the developments relating to the negotiations.