(IPS) analysis

The fourth ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation scheduled next month in Doha, Qatar, may end up being described as setting a 'new development agenda' and not just yet another 'new round' of trade talks.

That is, if the trade ministers from 21 leading WTO member countries who met in Singapore on the weekend will have their way.

Singaporean Trade and Industry Minister George Yeo, who chaired the two-day meeting in Singapore, said in a press conference on Sunday that calling a new round of global trade talks as 'New Development Agenda' was proposed by Tanzania and unanimously agreed to by the participants.

The recommendation will be relayed to the Doha meeting that is scheduled to take place from Nov 9-13. But since the talks held in Singapore were informal and involved only some WTO member countries, nothing discussed will be binding on the Doha conference.

The WTO has 145 member nations in all, and those represented at the meeting in Singapore made up less than 20 percent of the organisation's total membership.

Negative connotation

Still, Yeo said, ''We had a good meeting and the ministers were concerned about developing country issues...there's consensus feeling we should do more for them. It's important rules and facilities are there to let them benefit.''

This was why, he said, they agreed to use the term 'New Development Agenda' instead of a 'New Trade Round'. But he warned that if it is merely a change in the wrapping, it would end up being a joke. Said Yeo: ''There has to be a change in substance.''

Last Saturday, Singaporean Premier Goh Chock Tong had noted that the term 'New Round' has acquired a negative connotation. He then suggested that the trade ministers should consider a term like ''compact'' to describe agreements between developed and developing nations.

More than anything else, the meeting here seemed to be a show of optimism for world trade for many of the participants, most of whom said that it is essential to launch a new round of trade talks to get economies around the globe out of the doldrums.

''The economic situation worldwide gives peer pressure to move on with the talks,'' said European Union Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy. ''We need a collective reaction.''

US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick also said that his country believes ''a new trade talks will help us to come out of the global recession''.

'Weakness and doubt'

Host Singapore also happens to be one of the strongest voices for launching a new trade round.

Warned Goh in his speech on Saturday: ''A postponement of the (Doha) conference will show weakness and doubt on the benefits of globalisation and free trade. A postponement of the conference will merely embolden the anti-globalists and protectionists.''

Many delegation heads in Singapore indicated the WTO is committed to pushing through with the Doha meeting, although a few did not discount the possibility that it could be moved to another location because of security concerns. Yeo even admitted that Singapore has been sounded out as a possible alternative venue.

''We have done some preliminary checks,'' he said. ''We could probably do something on a much scaled down basis.''

Meanwhile, Yeo reported that the trade ministers who met in Singapore had substantive discussions despite the informal nature of the talks.

The basis of the discussions was the draft text prepared for the Doha meeting by WTO General Council chair Stuart Harbinson.

Yeo said the ministers had comprehensive talks on five key issues in the Doha draft, and had agreed that agriculture should be the centerpiece piece of the new development agenda.

Yeo pointed out that farm subsidies given by developed countries were bigger than the combined GDPs of sub-Saharan African countries, and also these subsidies are depriving developing countries of exporting their farm produce to the developed countries.

The other key issues discussed in Singapore were the environmental aspects of trade, implementation issues and the two so-called ''Singapore issues'' - competition and environment.

Zoellick said that the United States would like farm subsidies to be eliminated. But he added that WTO rules do allow farm subsidies as long as it is not trade distorting.

He said the United States would be working with the European Union to address their concerns about environmental issues and agriculture trade.

Environmental issues

Lamy, for his part, said that environmental issues are very important for the Europeans and they have been pushing this at the WTO from the beginning.

''WTO has to be responsive to environmental concerns,'' he said, adding, ''we have given an undertaking that we will not be pushing this towards some sort of trade protection."

When questioned about any talks on the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), Yeo, Zoellick and Lamy all said the Singapore meeting has agreed not to question the intellectual property rights regime.

They said, however, that there was also an agreement to be flexible in the application of it to health issues, particularly when essential drugs are needed at an affordable price to address a public health emergency in developing countries.