World Trade Organization Director-General Pascal Lamy says participants in the G20 and APEC summits, held last month, signaled they wanted the nine-year-old Doha round concluded and 2011 is a window of opportunity. Lamy told a WTO meeting called to review the state of the Doha talks, "We have the political signal, we have the technical expertise and we have the work program."
It is unclear whether leaders of the rich and emerging economies at the G20 summit in Seoul and leaders of Asia-Pacific states at the APEC summit in Yokohama were calling for a deal to be signed and sealed by the end of 2011 or just definitive progress toward an agreement. Most WTO members are assuming the call was for a done deal, with the possibility of ministers signing it at the WTO's next conference at the end of 2011.
Some differences came to the fore again at the meeting, with Brazil, speaking on behalf of other developing country food producers, warning that any improvements to the deal so far on the table sought by rich countries would require them to make further concessions on agriculture. U.S. Ambassador Michael Punke repeated Washington's view that big emerging economies like China, India and Brazil must do more to open up their markets, a long-standing cause of deadlock.
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