[WTO Talks Doha Round] Anti-globalisers want WTO trade round "buried"

from Reuters UK

More than 100 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) opposed to trade liberalisation on Tuesday demanded the WTO's troubled Doha round be "buried" as ministers prepare to fly to Geneva in a bid to revitalise it.

The group, including Action Aid International, Friends of the Earth and Focus on the Global South, said current negotiations "preclude any possibility of benefiting the majority of the world's population".

"The Doha round should be buried, starting by withdrawing support and objecting to the legitimacy of the June mini-ministerial," they said, referring to the meeting beginning on Thursday.

WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy has said the four-year-old round risks collapse without a breakthrough soon, starting with this week's meeting to be attended by more than 50 ministers, a third of the WTO membership.

Ministers are seeking an accord on slashing farm subsidies and import duties, along with deep cuts in industrial goods' tariffs, which is seen as vital to clearing the way to a full free trade treaty which advocates say will boost the global economy and help lift millions out of poverty.

But the NGOs said that analyses by the World Bank, the United Nations and several international think tanks showed that most of the gains would flow to the developed world.

People in Africa and in many other developing countries were projected to lose, they said in a letter sent to Lamy and the chairmen of the farm and industrial goods' negotiating committees.

"This is an unacceptable outcome from multilateral talks," they wrote.