Vital steps after Cancún

Prepared by the Commission on Trade and Investment Policy

At its meeting on 22 October 2003, ICC's Commission on Trade and Investment Policy - ICC's lead trade and investment policy-making body -- assessed the failure of the 5th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Cancún, and considered key steps for moving forward between now and the end of the year.

The Commission expressed its extreme disappointment at the failure of the Cancún conference and its serious concern about the consequences of this failure, in particular:

• the missed opportunity to send a confidence-boosting signal to a world economy characterized by uncertain prospects;
  
• the damage to the credibility and effectiveness of the WTO as an institution;
  
• the risk that WTO members will now turn their attention away from the WTO and multilateral trade liberalization, towards bilateral and regional trade initiatives; and
  
• the prospect of an increase in trade disputes resulting from the expiration of the "agriculture peace clause", given the lack of progress in the negotiations on agriculture.

World business, as represented by ICC, strongly believes that strengthening the rules-based multilateral trading system embodied by the WTO is the best way to liberalize trade and investment.

ICC therefore strongly urges all WTO members, between now and the WTO General Council meeting to be convened before 15 December 2003, to reaffirm their support for the multilateral trading system in a concrete way by promptly returning to the negotiating table in Geneva with constructive and practical proposals.

It is incumbent upon all WTO members to ensure that a positive momentum is regained over the next couple of months, so that the Doha round can be put back on a solid footing.

For this to happen, all WTO members must abandon rhetoric and entrenched positions, and reconvene in Geneva in a spirit of flexibility and compromise, backed by leadership and political will at the highest levels.

Given the vital role that the Doha round can play in boosting global economic growth and the welfare of consumers worldwide, ICC will expect nothing less.

Note: to complement the above, the attached annex provides more detailed views to WTO members in the lead-up to the December 2003 General Council meeting.

Annex

Between now and the WTO General Council meeting to be convened no later than 15 December 2003, WTO members should focus their energies on making concrete progress on substantive issues. For this reason, ICC supports the approach taken by the Chairman of the WTO General Council to concentrate on key outstanding issues. ICC expects all WTO members to make constructive contributions in this new phase to restore the positive momentum needed for the Doha round to succeed.

In order to give concrete meaning to the undertaking made by Ministers at the conclusion of the Cancún Conference to "bring into this new phase all the valuable work that has been done at [Cancún]", ICC calls on WTO members to use as a starting point the draft Cancún ministerial text of 13 September 2003.

In the lead-up to 15 December, ICC suggests that WTO governments focus their work on the following priorities:

• Reaching agreement on negotiating modalities on agriculture, with a view to improving market access for developing country agricultural products and reducing trade-distorting subsidies
  
• Reaching agreement on negotiating modalities on market access for industrial products, with greater attention paid to non-tariff barriers.
• Finding a way to move forward each of the so-called Singapore issues -- competition, investment, trade facilitation and transparency in government procurement -- on their own merit and at their own pace. ICC attaches strong importance to the inclusion of trade facilitation in the negotiations at the earliest possible date. ICC also believes that WTO members should find a way to incorporate negotiations on transparency in government procurement into the Doha agenda.

· Towards this end, ICC, as the only organization representing business across all sectors and all parts of the world, will intensify its efforts to broaden the global business dialogue on the multilateral trade agenda in order to assist WTO members in reaching consensus by providing world business input into their work.