New
Delhi: WTO director general Pascal Lamy expects
greater involvement from global leaders to deliver a
breakthrough in the Doha round of negotiations at the
WTO by June.
Lamy
is currently in India to participate in a seminar on
the Doha round.
He
said, "The prospects of closing the gap (in positions
of major players) appears more plausible and probable
than ever. We are at a delicate and critical moment
and have a possibility to deliver.
"There
has been a pretty good movement and we have the opportunity
of closing the gap some time end of June. The landing
zone has started to appear," he said, adding that
the push was coming from political leaders who realise
that the cost of failure would be huge.
He
said that the major countries and blocks India,
Brazil, US and EU were involved in hectic bilateral
negotiations and were close to making their offers "which
could see us bringing down its trade distorting subsidies
and EU its farm tariffs."
Emerging
countries would be providing market access in right
proportion.
Lamy
was, however, worried that the movement was slow. He
said talks have been at the bilateral level and any
breakthrough would have to come at multilateral level.
Earlier
speaking at the seminar, Lamy said: "we need to
speed up the
process so as to grasp the window of opportunity which
closes by the end of June. In June US administration's
mandate from the legislature to accept any deal at the
WTO expires."
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