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| Doha Development Round |
Doha Development Round is a part of trade negotiations which started in 2001 and still lingering along. This round started under the authority of WTO (World trade organisation) with an aim to reduce trade barriers which are hampering world trade and thus to allow global trade in greater amount.
The Doha Round commenced in the capital city of Qatar (Doha) and that’s why it is called Doha Development Round which was followed by intense ministerial level rounds at Mexico (2003) and Hong Kong (2005) with related talks in France, Germany and Switzerland.
The minsters-level meeting of the member states of WTO formally recognised the Doha Round agenda in 2001 in Doha, which aims to provide a friendly environment for global trade to boost up the world economy, thus to nurture a good living standard for all the people around the world irrespective of nationality, caste, culture etc. The negotiations were conducted in a pleasant environment apart from some issues which became a bone of contention between the developed countries and developing countries.
The main bone of contention was the disagreement over the removal of Tariff and Non-tariff barriers on Agriculture items, Non-agricultural items ( Manufacturing and Industrial production etc) and services sector. Developed countries and especially, the United States of America which considers its industrial sector as the main income generator for the economy pushed for greater market access of its products to the developing world. However, its duplicity was quite obvious in the context of agriculture sector where it refused to remove or reduce barriers which are hampering exports of the developing world.
It also was not in favour of awarding special privileges to the developing world which were going to help the developing countries in saving their industry from a debacle.
Developing countries are already exporting industrial items from the developed world but it sought certain special privileges (Special Safeguard Mechanism) in the talks with an aim to save their industry from disaster. These countries having agriculture as a backbone of economy strongly raised a voice in favour of removing trade barriers by the Developed world especially by USA, Europe and Japan etc on the agriculture items. Services sector and intellectual property rights were another bone of contention.The main bone of contention was the disagreement over the removal of Tariff and Non-tariff barriers on Agriculture items, Non-agricultural items ( Manufacturing and Industrial production etc) and services sector. Developed countries and especially, the United States of America which considers its industrial sector as the main income generator for the economy pushed for greater market access of its products to the developing world. However, its duplicity was quite obvious in the context of agriculture sector where it refused to remove or reduce barriers which are hampering exports of the developing world.
It also was not in favour of awarding special privileges to the developing world which were going to help the developing countries in saving their industry from a debacle.
There are no proper laws or laws are not implementable in the developing countries as for as the intellectual property rights are concerned. So, organisations the USA and other developing countries pressed hard for more strict laws and complete implementation of these laws in the developing world. This discussion is alive for more than a decade with no fruitful result, apart from the Bali package (Will be discussed in the next article) that is just a part of Doha Development Round.
Prospects for Pakistan
Pakistan being a developing country is in constant touch with other developing organisations that represent developing countries, organizations include Cains Group and Group-33. These organizations are pursuing mutual interests of the developing countries all over the world.
Like other developing countries, the industry of Pakistan is quite backward compared with the industry of developed countries. So a complete free trade without privileges will ruin its industry, thus Pakistan is looking for special incentives for developing countries which will stop disaster in their economies and will help boost up their industry in long term. On the other side, Pakistan wants free-market access for its agriculture items that is providing jobs to almost 70% of the people.
So, overall the negotiations should end in a win-win situations instead of being influenced by bigger economies.
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