WTO Trade Round: Latest 亚洲色吧 Poll Shows Good and Bad News
Monday, 8 December 2003
Summary
There's good news and bad news in this latest poll.
Most of the survey population believes that the Doha Round will eventually succeed, even if an extension of time for the negotiations is required.
That's the good news.
The bad news is that there is a surprising lack of consensus on the best way to move the talks forward. Only a plurality see the Derbez text as the best basis for building on work done to date and delegates and experts are split down the middle on their expectations for how the negotiations will be organized in 2004.
In the short term, a slight majority of those polled see at least a 50-50 chance of a procedural success at the mid-December meeting, so that could at least maintain some momentum in the talks. Changing negotiating group chairs is not seen as helpful by most.
After Cancun, many expected the dissolution of the G-[21] [X] Group, but it now looks like a longer term phenomenon. It's generally agreed that the cotton issue cannot be addressed outside of the context of the agriculture reform negotiations.
The most negative signals in this poll were those related to progress in the agriculture talks and the on-going TRIPS and Health issue. Less than 20 percent see prospects of reaching agreement on a framework for the agriculture talks within the first quarter of 2004.
Two-thirds of respondents think it's going to be difficult to