Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Doha Round to conclude?

The Doha Round of trade negotiations at the WTO has been underway since 2001.  Every so often one could read about talks "collapsing", deadlines being missed and/or extended, and various commentaries about how awful it was that there was no agreement yet.

All of which strikes me as overblown.  Yep, trade negotiations at the WTO take a long time - especially since the talks now feature effective involvement by many more countries with a greater diversity of economic development and interests.  What else could you expect?  Surely, any new agreement would require years of talking first, and waiting to see how things are working out under the last big trade agreement (which was a pretty major change - establishing the WTO).

Anyway, there are thoughts that the Doha Round may conclude next year.

No comments: