UNCTAD/WTO urge all to continue with Doha Round

By The Nation

Concluding the now-stalled Doha trade negotiations is increasingly critical as the global financial crisis spreads, the heads of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) said.

Sharing the podium at UNCTAD's annual Trade and Development Board, UNCTAD Secretary-General Supachai Panitchpakdi and WTO Director-General Pascal

Lamy expressed the view the morning after stocks tumbled worldwide on news of failure of the Lehman Brothers investment bank.

They said reaching agreement on the seven-year-old negotiations was now

important not only for the gains it would bring directly but because it

would inject confidence and order into shaken economies and financial

markets.

"We are witnessing a confluence of different crises this year,"

Supachai said. "As for Doha, we need this one multilateral effort to be

completed successfully. Then we could face these other difficulties with a

more optimistic perspective."

"All of these

crises" - and he mentioned rising food prices, climbing energy costs,

damage from climate change, and other issues along with threats to the

global financial and banking systems - "can only be dealt with at the

multilateral level. We need international predictability and stability in

the global financial system."

Concluding the Doha Round would at least give a good foundation for "facing

these other crises," he said.

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