Please click here for updated addresses. Contact our webmaster . The World Trade Organization has decided to try once again this autumn to launch a broad round of trade negotiations, hoping to do in the Persian Gulf oil state of Qatar what it could not do in Seattle in 1999. When trade ministers from more than 140 WTO countries gather Nov. 9 in Doha, Qatar, for five days, the pressure will be on them to agree to the terms and goals of a new round. Last week, WTO director general Mike Moore said it is time to start a new negotiation.
Agriculture is one of the reasons.
The siren voices of protectionism beckon. Three days later, the WTO set the dates for the next meeting and announced the location. But in Canada, agricultural interests and trade lobbyists welcomed the news that a new trade negotiation may be launched, wherever it happens. Canada has set its sights on eliminating export subsidies, increasing access to foreign markets and reducing production-distorting domestic subsidies. It also insists it will protect the tariffs that allow price-setting supply management systems to operate and state trading organizations like the Canadian Wheat Board.