"Doha: the low hanging fruit: A successful outcome to the WTO trade talks is still possible."

Read the full article by Angel Gurría (Secretary-General of the OECD) in The OECD Observer.
: Published: August 2006

"I am in contact with leaders and officials both from the world’s most developed nations and from developing countries. When the Doha Development Round talks collapsed in July, I was struck by the gap between what officials say when they meet at the OECD in Paris and how they define their positions in the WTO talks in Geneva.

"The Doha Development Agenda is an opportunity to re-balance trade rules in favour of developing countries while boosting the world economy. The Doha talks reportedly collapsed largely because of disagreements over agriculture, but clearly that is not the whole story. Indeed, some rich countries were not ready to accept larger tariff cuts or bigger reductions in trade-distorting domestic subsidies for farm products. Emerging market countries, meanwhile, offered what some saw as only modest improvements in market access for goods and services."