WTO to Rebalance Power Between Developed, Developing Members: Supachai

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, November 26, 2001

WTO to Rebalance Power Between Developed, Developing Members: Supachai

Rebalancing the power of developed and developing members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) is a major task facing the multilateral trade body, WTO's next chief said.

Supachai Panitchpakdi, former Thai deputy premier who will become WTO's director-general in September 2002, was quoted by Monday's Bangkok Post as saying that he hopes to complete the task during his three-year term. He said he also expects to see the new round of trade talks, which was agreed to be launched at the WTO Doha Meeting earlier this month, to benefit both developed and developing members.

"For developing countries, the clear focus of the trade talks is on four areas -- agriculture, textiles, TRIPs (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) and anti-dumping," said the WTO chief-designate. "I believe that for each area, there is a need for developing countries to seek cooperation from developed nations, to reach a balance of interests." However, the future WTO leader who will have to oversee much ofthe implementation of the Doha Declaration, admitted it is difficult to foresee how much time would be needed to compete the new round of negotiations.

Issues on investment were unlikely to be completely resolved by2005 as ministers of WTO members have to decide at the next ministerial session, to be held in 2003, on the form of negotiations, according to Supachai. "What we might see is that in the next two years, it will be upto the meeting to say whether or not we can move forward on investment talks," he said.

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