NEW DELHI, SEP 5: 
Stating that the Doha Round negotiations is “deadlocked”, the WTO Director General Mr Pascal Lamy has said it is time for the WTO member countries to think seriously about how they can continue to advance global trade opening and how they can make progress in updating the existing trading rules.


The World Trade Organisation’s Doha Round negotiations -- which started in 2001 -- is deadlocked due to the differences between the developed and developing nations on the extent of liberalisation of trade in industrial goods, agriculture and services.
Mr Lamy, who is on a two-day visit to Delhi, said on Monday that three key ingredients -- leadership, pragmatism and determination--- can help in breaking the impasse of the Doha Round.
Noting that the WTO will be holding a Ministerial Conference in December, Mr Lamy said, “I am confident that the WTO members will be able to chart a path forward (on the negotiations).”
The WTO chief was speaking after opening the WTO’s first training course in partnership with an Indian institute. The Centre for WTO Studies at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, New Delhi, was selected by the WTO Secretariat as the regional partner for the WTO's prestigious Regional Trade Policy Course for the Asia-Pacific region.
Elaborating on the three key ingredients, Mr Lamy said ‘leadership’ is crucial because trade negotiations are governments' actions. Governing requires making choices, taking decisions and being ready to defend them at home, he said. “Pragmatism is needed to find paths that lead us to a final result; the path may not always be straight, we may need to take long winding roads, we may need to move at different speeds but the final goal will be worth it,” he said.
Determination is also a must, Mr Lamy said, adding that, “We cannot give up because the slope is too steep, because it takes too long or because the headlines are negative; we need determination because WTO negotiations are a collective enterprise of 153 members building for the long-term.”
Stating that open trade helps in generating employment and reducing poverty, he said, “This is why now, more than ever, when we hear many talk about a crisis in multilateralism, it is time to speak up for the value of the multilateral trading system and of the WTO.”