Continuation of the Doha round on the horizon?

The scenarios of the suspended Doha round were examined in Davos at the Annual Meeting of World Economic Forum (WEF) which ended 28th of January.

The miniministerial held in Davos gave new hope that the negotiations could be resumed. However, the final decision on the resumption has to be done within the WTO.

WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy believes that there is a new commitment towards continuation of the negotiations and completion of the Doha round. Even though the messages from different WTO members were encouraging, there is still lot of work to be done in order to reach the breakthrough, hopefully during the spring.

A "soft resumption" of the round was launched already at the end of the year 2006 in Geneva through informal consultations by negotiating groups. In these meetings, led by the chairs of the negotiating groups, discussions focused inter alia technical questions and work programme for spring.