Associated Press
DOHA, Qatar — Two years after the last bid to get global trade talks going collapsed in Seattle’s streets, negotiators began the arduous task of trying again Friday — facing pressure this time not from street protests but from the threat of global recession.
The World Trade Organization will also bring the world’s biggest country, China, into its fold today after 15 years of negotiations. Taiwan will be approved a day later.
But the main focus of the five-day meeting is whether differences that sank the 1999 Seattle talks, like farm subsidies in the West, and new ones, such as access to medicines for the poorest countries, can be overcome to reach consensus on launching new negotiations.
Those pushing for a new round said success would send a strong signal of confidence in the world economy and of solidarity in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the United States.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in a statement delivered to the conference, said a global recession would be "devastating" for the world’s poor.
"To halt and reverse this trend, we must restore market confidence, create new export opportunities and resume growth," he said. "Now, more than ever, we need to resist the siren voices of protectionism and work out multilateral solutions to our problems."
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said it was "a critical time for cooperation and moving forward, not isolation and retreat."
Even before the opening ceremony, Zoellick met with ministers from African members of the WTO and with Asian ministers and emerged saying he was "encouraged."
He also stressed that the meeting’s mission was not to solve all of the problems.
"Our role here is to launch new negotiations, not to complete them," he said.
If a new round is launched, it will likely last for years. The last talks, called the Uruguay round after the country where they were approved, finished in 1994.
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