Lamy Tackles Necessary Measures to Revive Doha Negotiations

It was a great opportunity to attend such an event and get in-depth insight of the real situation and the measures to be undertaken to revive the Doha negotiations and face the financial crisis - Odeh

NEW DELHI --- September 9, 2009 ---Abu-Ghazaleh Intellectual Property India Executive Director, Khalid Odeh and other experts and professionals from specialized organizations in trade, Intellectual Property and finance attended a special address on ?WTO and Doha Negotiations: What is at stake, where do we stand and the way forward? delivered by Mr. Pascal Lamy, director general, of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The event, organized by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) in New Delhi, witnessed a high?profile discussion led by Lamy who highlighted several key issues regarding the global economic crisis and its challenges.

According to Odeh ?It was a great opportunity to attend such an event and get in-depth insight of the real situation and the measures to be undertaken to revive the Doha negotiations and face the financial crisis?.

?It was an in-depth look at the crisis and the challenges roaming around it,? he added.

Meanwhile and in his address, Lamy highlighted that ?we are living in worrying times. We are witnessing the first truly global economic crisis ever, its effects spanning all countries, North and South, rich and poor...In sum, we are witnessing a host of global challenges which are testing the capacity of the international system to address them.?

?What started as a financial crisis, fuelled by a lack of sufficient regulation in this field, has turned into the worst economic crisis in generations and the first global crisis in the history of mankind. A crisis which threatens to undo the economic development achieved by many countries,? Lamy said.

Lamy also underscored that ?rather than being a cause of this crisis, trade has been another casualty, given the simultaneous reduction in aggregate demand across all major world economies.?

Lamy also highlighted the role played by the WTO.

?The WTO has been carefully monitoring trade policy developments. We have seen an increase in restrictive trade measures since the onset of the crisis,? he said, adding that ?A group of WTO Ministers will have the opportunity to map out how they intend to bring the Doha round to closure in 2010. The setting of the meeting in Delhi is propitious.?

In the conclusion, Lamy stressed that ?In other words, unless and until a truly global consensus emerges on how best to tackle the issue of climate change, WTO members will continue to hold different views on what the multilateral trading system can and must do on this subject.?

The main objective of the event organized by FICCI was to provide a forum for understanding and deliberating on the latest WTO negotiations, dynamics and importance of multilateralism, with a special focus on discussing necessary measures to revive the Doha Negotiations.