Archive - Oct 15, 2005

DG Pascal Lamy and Sec. John Tsang will be keynote speakers of a roundtable forum on 16 October 2005 at the Hong Kong University.

Trade activists numbering over 3,000 massed up in front of the WTO headquarters here this afternoon to open the weeklong activities centered around the upcoming WTO General Council Meeting.

The WTO's Trade Negotiations Committee met on 13 October to take stock of the state of the Doha negotiations, with members giving views on recent developments and some members presenting a few new proposals.

The Group of 20 developing countries held a press conference on 12 October in Geneva to give a response to the proposals of the US and EU and comments on the series of meetings in Zurich and Geneva earlier in the week.

In the negotiations of the past week starting 10 October, the EU has made clear its demand that developing countries have to pay a heavy price in widely opening up its markets in industrial products and services, in exchange for the concessions the EU is proposing in agriculture.

The US proposals on agriculture unveiled on Monday 10 October in Zurich by US Trade Representative Robert Portman has come under criticism from several developing countries and NGOs for not doing enough to cut its domestic support