As things stand right now, we don’t know.  But we are going to find out very soon.

Doha’s demise has been predicted so many times in recent years that most casual observers are surprised to find that ”the Round” is still “around”. After a long period of inactivity following the failed attempt to conclude negotiations in 2008, new signs of life became apparent in the second half of 2010.  The G20 Summits in Toronto and Seoul espoused the cause, seeing in Doha a potential contribution to worldwide economic recovery and an achievable demonstration that international economic cooperation is alive and well. In Geneva, ambassadors took it upon themselves personally to nurture a flicker of life – which Director-General Pascal Lamy is now trying energetically to fan into a flame.

For the first time in recent history, there is real pressure to conclude the Round:  pressure from the G20 Leaders; pressure from the realization that the WTO will be weakened as an institution if the Round fails; and – perhaps crucially – real time pressure.  There is a growing appreciation  that it is now or never for Doha.  Political events scheduled for next year mean that it will be very difficult to move a trade agenda forward beyond the end of 2011 (or, at a stretch, very early 2012).  If Doha has not been done by then, it will go into a deep coma for an extended period – a coma from which it is most unlikely to emerge in its present form.

The Round has been stuck chiefly because the United States (along with some less vocal sympathizers) does not regard the progress already achieved in the negotiations, dating from 2008, as balanced. Pointing to the changed economic landscape since the Round was launched in 2001, it wants a greater contribution from major emerging economies and more certainty about how developing countries would use the flexibilities envisioned in the draft “modalities”. These messages have been unpalatable to the majority of WTO Members.  But they have now gained a certain grudging acceptance as reflecting political reality.

The questions now are: what is the extent of the additional level of ambition that needs to be added to the deal; can the major emerging economies find that extra element; if they do so, what will they demand in return; and will developed countries then be able to respond?  This is a circular structure of questions, the answers to which need to be identified more or less simultaneously, not consecutively.  A tough ask, but one which would raise the level of ambition of the Round overall somewhat and salvage the WTO’s reputation as a negotiating forum, and therefore one which is well worth the major effort now under way.

Working backwards from the end of 2011, bearing in mind that it will take an estimated six months (at least) for scheduling and verification of commitments and for legal fine tuning, July 2011 is emerging as the time by which agreement has to be reached on a Doha package.  That in turn means that all the elements, in a fairly well developed form, have to be on the table before then.  Hence the current frenetic activity in Geneva.

This activity has to translate into real action – and very soon, given the looming real deadline.  Do we see movement yet?

The answer, as I write, appears to be that there are promising signs but no more than that.  Many eyes are trained on the United States and China.  An understanding between the two on important elements of Doha, while not sufficient in itself to conclude the Round, could impart considerable momentum. The good news is that, following the summit meeting between Presidents Obama and Hu in January, it looks like China is ready and willing to do its share of the heavy lifting to finish the Round.  China will certainly not be writing any blank cheques, nor would it be reasonable to expect that.

In addition to the U.S. and China, the G5 (including the European Union, Brazil and India) has a crucial role to play in turning momentum into detailed agreement.  As do other layers of the “concentric circles” involved in WTO negotiations.

In order to induce movement overall, there also needs to be a level of trust between the major protagonists so that bottom lines can be tested and accommodations found.  It’s not clear that this level of trust exists at present.  A complication in this connection is the complexity of the U.S. process, with the Administration in the driving seat but a multiplicity of private sector stakeholders and the congressional dimension.  But complications are just that; they are not insoluble.

There is a realistic possibility that the Round will be concluded this year.  A lot of the basic work has been done (albeit some areas are better developed than others).  In contrast with previous efforts, we have a real, as opposed to an artificially created, deadline.  There is high level political commitment.

These positive indicators now have to be translated urgently into success.  The credibility of a lot of people is at stake – leaders, trade ministers, negotiators – not to mention the credibility of the WTO as an institution.  Because of the time constraints, we will know very soon if it is going to happen.  All supporters of the rules-based global trading system represented by the WTO fervently hope so.

Stuart Harbinson

Senior Trade Policy Adviser, Sidley Austin LLP, Geneva and

Non-residential Senior Fellow at ECIPE

The cyclical component of the crisis has been managed. This is why it is more likely than in 2009/2010  that the Doha Round will be concluded in 2011.

Seen from a German perspective and based on discussions with German CEOs, the crisis gave rise to fears of protectionist spirals and to a strong priority of German companies: securing the home market. This included the (temporary) retreat from further expanding cross-border value added chains. Now, with emerging markets displaying an unbroken demand for imports from Germany, the reciprocity issue is back on the agenda. German companies fear that their position on major export markets could be threatened by EU denial of concessions or by playning mercantilist games. Rising prices for agricultural commodities are helpful to tame the reluctance of the EU agricultural lobby against a Doha Round conclusion. In NAMA talks, there is reason for hope that EU policymakers understand how little can be gained in nitty-gritty negotiations on a specific Swiss coefficient when products from EU markets are supplied under imperfect competition, economies and scale and consumer preferences and thus are not subject to fierce price competition with  domestic goods. And there is further hope that EU governments from debt-ridden Mediterranean countries see the chance that a Doha Round conclusion can be helpful to divert German exports from their countries to the rest of the world and to ensure real income gains for their citizens burdened by tough adjustment programs.

But these are just hopes. Sizable barriers against a conclusion still exist, in particular on the US side of the Atlantic where persistent unemployment does not offer a fertile ground for multilateral trade liberalisation. In my view, the key to the end of the Doha Round is in the hands of the US administration and capital hill.

Should the political will to conclude the Round in 2011 falter, I am most sceptical for 2012 as the downside risks for a economic recovery will then rise, for various reasons.

Rolf J. Langhammer

Professor and Vice President, Kiel Institute for the World Economy

My response to this question is that I am sceptical about the chances of success.  It is obviously not a question where a direct yes or no is possible today, all depends on progress or the lack of it over coming months.  Equally one cannot safely predict how discussions and negotiations will develop.

My basic reason for being a doubter is that I have not seen clear evidence that the political will to conclude – and to make the necessary compromises for a deal – exists.  Since 2008, and arguably even further back, the rhetoric that promised progress has run way ahead of the discussion on the ground.  Successive G8 summit meetings, and since the new G20 was established its meetings also, have issued declarations which are astonishingly similar to each other and which have all proved fruitless.

There is an important rider to be made here.  Political will is a notoriously fickle state of the collective mind and it could turn around quite rapidly in response to events that we cannot foresee.  If Heads of Government accepted the Sutherland idea of a fixed end date to the negotiations, with success or failure then declared, that might begin a process of change. On balance I doubt that they would agree to be hand-cuffed like that; but some other trigger to modify the current impasse could appear.

A second reason for scepticism is my long held view that the Round is no longer ‘fit for purpose’, and does not now reflect the accepted objectives of all members.  Launched at Doha but designed well before that – probably already in 1996 in Singapore when a Millennium Round was proposed – it follows a pattern familiar from earlier Rounds which reflected the interests and ambitions of the major players.  Further market opening  with tariff cuts on goods and liberalisation of access for services were thought to be universally accepted aims; further progress to reduce barriers and distortions in agriculture was mandated as part of the Uruguay Round deal.

But the world was changing, as events in Seattle should have shown, followed later by Cancun.  The US and the EU, both with major political problems over any change to support policies in agriculture, were slow to realise that the time had come for much more than the ‘optical reform’ that was agreed in the UR.  The extraordinary jump in membership to the current total of over 150 countries also introduced major divergences in the attitudes of members.  The clear idea at the base of the WTO – that there should be the same rules and benefits for all members – was becoming difficult to translate into agreed negotiating objectives.

The original Doha objectives were ambitious, fuelled by the success of the Uruguay Round; but they seem now beyond the capacity of members to sustain the changes that are implied and surely too comprehensive in their attempted coverage.  In 2011 there are around 100 members of WTO who can claim developing status and who see the Round (through the DDA label) as primarily an opportunity to improve their access to world markets. Among them are the ‘emerging economies’ – some of them G20 members – who are not yet convinced that they can manage with less support and need now to make a larger contribution to the trading system.  Some also, to be fair, do not see the proposals on agricultural access and on subsidy reduction as going far enough to change the established pattern of major distortions in trade.

Observers outside the negotiation have to rely on publicly stated positions. There are some indications that key bilateral discussions are taking place behind the scenes among major players and that American interest in a solution to Doha, after a period of passive vigilance, has returned to a higher priority. If this is in due course confirmed, and deals are made, the more sceptic minds will still wonder whether that will persuade all the WTO members to join in. Can we be sure, in 2011, that the old assumptions that what major players are willing to do to move the trading system forward will be good for all members still hold true?  and will be accepted by them at that value?

Roderick Abbott

Former Deputy Director General of the World Trade Organisation; Senior Adviser, ECIPE

Maybe. It all depends on politics in the major players, and whether the stars can align – sufficiently.

The United States remains the indispensible nation. President Obama is tacking to the centre with the 2012 elections in mind, and his domestic reform agenda in tatters. Foreign policy may be the last refuge of a lame duck President, but trade is most likely where some tangible gains could be achieved (forget about climate change!). Historically there has been a core bi-partisan consensus on trade liberalization and the US’s ‘mission’ in maintaining and extending the multilateral trading system. In the wake of the financial crisis, entrenched unemployment, and escalating economic tensions with China it is not obvious this consensus – if indeed it still exists – will suffice. Offsetting this is the fact that big emerging markets are set to grow more rapidly than the industrialized world for the foreseeable future, and a successful Doha round outcome would yield some market access gains for US business to accord with President Obama’s export drive. So a big push from the US may seem tenuous but is not implausible.

So what does the US want? Simply put, more ‘ambition’ from its trading partners. The US and EU are tacitly (or perhaps overtly?) in agreement concerning the limits to reforming their domestic agricultural policy regimes; hence the big push will be on emerging market industrial tariffs and services markets.

How might this play out? Brazil is likely to come on board – there is enough on the table to satisfy its farmers and industrial tariffs have enough ‘water’ to accommodate relatively ambitious NAMA formulas and perhaps sectorals. India and perhaps China could be prepared to contribute more on industrial tariffs; South Africa and its NAMA 11 allies (excluding China, India, and Brazil) are not but if the big 3 sign up then South Africa is likely to take the ‘special deal’ it has on offer perhaps in return for symbolic concessions by developed countries on agriculture, since real concessions will not be on offer.

Agriculture will be difficult, particularly India and the G33 in relation to the largely developed country G10. The likely price developing countries in these groupings will charge for offering more access to their industrial goods markets will be substantial agricultural liberalization carve-outs. Since the US and EU largely have theirs this logic will be difficult to resist. It will also be interesting to see how the CAP reform process within the EU unfolds now that the European Parliament has co-decision authority over it.

Services will be a tough nut to crack, and it is not obvious to this observer what the ‘contract zone’ (or more accurately series of ‘contract zones’) is. This may be the major fly in the ointment given the prominence of services exports and investment to the US and European economies.

If a core group consensus emerges and all the majors move together towards the end game, it will be very difficult for the other players to resist. The most substantial potential ‘blocking bloc’ is the ACP/LDC/African configuration. One totemic issue, bananas, seems to have been removed from the agricultural equation as the EU seems to have largely accommodated Latin American interests through bilateral deals and ACP interests through promises of increased development aid. The EU has also promised to retain ACP preference margins on Cotonou and ‘Everything but arms’ products. Furthermore LDCs/SVEs/SIDs (have I left any acronyms out?!) will have their interests accommodated through substantial carve-outs from the NAMA deal (they will have to bind their tariff regimes but not much else). Cotton remains the totemic issue, so the US will need to offer something here to bring this group on board (the Brazilians having already cut their own deal in an abject lesson regarding the limits to developing country solidarity).

With the big push underway now these broad contours and many more detailed ones will have to be traversed if the round is to be brought to a successful conclusion. This time around I am holding my breath, but as usual I will not be surprised if the end result is failure. Overall, I retain some cautious optimism that the deal can be worked out this year, leaving the modalities to next year.

Peter Draper

Senior Research Fellow, South African Institute of International Affairs; Non-resident Senior Fellow, ECIPE

We should hope so for two reasons.  On the one hand, the clouds on the world economy are still piling up, rather than on decline.  The industrialized economies will not be in a good shape for a couple of years, at least.  Some of them will be tempted to relax their policies too early—there are many presidential elections in 2012 and, as often, the price tag of such elections (softening too much the blows, promising too much) will emerge in 2013-2014.  The emerging economies look great, but the news from China suggest that the costs of the stimulus may be yet to be seen, with clearly unprofitable over-investments in infrastructure.  The food and energy prices are on the rise, and there are ample political uncertainties for fuelling them even more.

On the other hand, the existing texts of a possible Doha Round package are not so far from a reasonable package.  They rely on concessions large enough to bring substantial gains—roughly between 300 and 700 billions of US dollars.  Business leaders who claim today that the Doha Round does not deliver enough opportunities should ruminate on—and be made accountable of—what will happen to their firms and their countries if the trade system collapses under too few compromises.  These gains are spread on a large set of sectors so that the Doha Round will not generate strong adjustment shocks to individual sectors—the last thing that policy-makers in industrial countries should ask for.

To be concluded, this reasonable package needs some efforts at the margin in agricultural and industrial goods, but above all it requires an agreement in services.  Services have a remarkable feature beyond the trade aspect.  They offer a long term solution to the macroeconomic imbalances which are haunting policy-makers, fuelling international bitterness and domestic frustations.  The United States could not export more without making use of its competitive edge in some services.  China could not shift more its focus on its domestic markets without satisfying its huge domestic potential demand in services.

Patrick Messerlin

Professor of economics and Director of Groupe d’Économie Mondiale at Sciences Po

Substantial progress can be made in 2011 on a Doha Round agreement.  Even under the best of circumstances, however, the end game negotiations could not be concluded this year.

The reason for this downbeat assessment is simple.  Despite the positive charge from G-20 leaders in Seoul last November, and despite technical work undertaken by Geneva officials since then, the major trading nations have not yet begun to negotiate with each other.  Setting new target dates for concluding modalities on agriculture and non-agricultural market access (NAMA) is futile unless those countries can agree that (1) liberalization commitments need to go beyond cuts already presaged by the Ag and NAMA formula cuts and (2) services negotiations have to accelerate and yield commitments to concrete reforms.  Without the prospect of additional market access gains, the United States, European Union, China, Brazil, and India will continue to maintain their rigid positions, waiting for their partners to make the first move.

Breakthroughs are still possible in the coming weeks.  U.S. and Chinese officials meet next week in Geneva and U.S. and Brazilian leaders hold a summit in Brazil in early March.  If these meetings break the diplomatic ice on the trade talks and produce new market access offers, they could well propel other trade superpowers to reciprocate with new proposals on services and NAMA that “top up” liberalization beyond what would be achieved by the formula cuts for specified products in a range of sectors.

However, even with enhanced engagement by key countries, working out the details of the “formula-plus” cuts on specific NAMA tariff lines and scheduling the terms of the services commitments will be a laborious task.  Conceivably, Geneva officials could construct an outline or framework of a final Doha package before the end of this year—teeing up decisions on the final tradeoffs which leaders of the trade superpowers could address in 2012 or 2013 (depending on how long they continue to dither this year).

Without these “top ups”, the value of a Doha deal would be significant but not sufficient to ensure ratification when the agreement is presented to national legislatures.  Ministers won’t close the deal until they are confident they can bring it home and get it implemented.

Jeffrey J. Schott

Senior Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics

To be confident that the Doha round will be completed this year, it helps to believe in the efficacy of the “one last heave” theory: the idea that all it will take is for World Trade Organisation negotiators to summon enough dedication, perspiration and energy to mount a final concerted push that will clear away the remaining obstacles to a deal.

The case in favour of this view rests on two arguments. First that, notwithstanding the chequered history of this round, quite a lot of progress has already been achieved, most obviously on agricultural subsidies; and second, that many of the gaps still to be bridged between negotiating positions appear quite small.

Both assertions are debatable. But even if true, they miss the point. Everything that is on the table today was already on the table when the negotiations broke down in July 2008. If a deal could not be struck then, what has changed in the ensuing two-and-a-half years to make one attainable now? Beyond (yet more) rhetorical pledges by heads of government, the resumption of WTO meetings and an indefinable sense of buzz in the air, the answer remains unclear.

If the deadlock is to be broken, the solution will depend not on byzantine manoeuvrings in Geneva, but on shifts in political calculus in national capitals. Put bluntly, are governments any more determined than before to invest valuable capital in making the compromises needed to reach agreement and then to stake their own prestige on selling them to sometimes recalcitrant national legislatures and domestic lobbies?

The other big question is international leadership. It would be comforting to suppose that a simple process of gentlemanly give-and-take will lead WTO members to converge on an agreement. But that would defy historic precedent: someone has always had to force the pace and crack the whip. In past trade rounds, the world has relied on Washington, with more or less tacit support from Brussels, to make the running. It also took a change of GATT director-general to bring the Uruguay round to closure.

However, the US has exercised leadership only sporadically in the Doha talks, and the fast-track authority it needs to clinch new trade deals expired under President George W. Bush, with uncertain prospects for renewal. Equally, US capacity to lay down the law internationally has diminished as WTO membership has expanded, while the global crisis and reshaping of the world order prompted by the rise of emerging economies have, more broadly, eroded the influence of the developed countries that dominated the GATT.

Yet none of the larger emerging economies – China, India or Brazil – has shown any inclination, individually or together, to pick up the baton from the US. Indeed, China has conspicuously taken a back seat in the Doha talks and India has until recently played a largely negative role, while Brazil’s efforts have been limited to attacking barriers to its agricultural exports. Unless positions shift, the round will remain deadlocked or will fail.

How can progress be made? The answer lies in Washington and Beijing. More than anything else, the fate of this round is likely to depend on whether the US and China can find a way to co-operate constructively. If the world’s two largest economies and most fractious trade partners were genuinely to work for an agreement, it could create a powerful groundswell that would carry others along with it.

Anything as formal as joint Sino-US leadership is obviously out of the question. But some kind of broad diplomatic entente is needed. As a minimum, it will also have to involve a nuts-and-bolts resolution of the two sides’ outstanding negotiating differences that both governments can live with and can sell to constituencies back home.

That is a tall order. Sino-US relations are riddled with frictions and mutual mistrust. The economic crisis, stagnating real household incomes and persistently high unemployment have further dulled America’s already weak appetite for trade liberalisation, while bitter partisan rivalry and political polarisation threaten to create policy gridlock in Washington for at least the next two years.

In Beijing, the impetus for economic reforms has been waning for several years. China’s current leaders, who step down in 2012, seem increasingly risk-averse, preoccupied with their economic legacy and reluctant to offend the proliferating special interests that increasingly dominate policy. To suppose they could or would meet the US demands for improved market access needed to satisfy Congress and command American business support is a stretch.

Yet, if Washington and Beijing are to find a stable mode of co-existence, this is just the kind of challenge they will need to confront. Until it is clearer whether they can master it – and whether the governments of other leading WTO members are really prepared to make the necessary political commitment – predictions of the fate of the Doha round will remain, at best, stabs in the dark.

Guy de Jonquières

Senior Fellow, ECIPE; Former World Trade Editor of the Financial Times

No. The Doha Round will not be concluded this year for three reasons:

First, because the United States is the one economy sizable enough to promote a consensus and it has not demonstrated a commitment to the Doha Round beyond occasional rhetoric.

Second, one of the main drivers of a round – fear – is not credibly.  With the Uruguay Round, participants were spurred to act out of concern that the round might be supplanted or marginalized in the face of broader U.S. bilateral liberalization.  Since the U.S. has signaled a slow approach to FTAs, this concern is not credible.

Third, India and other countries have seen that there is more to be gained in domestic politics by arguing against the Round rather than supporting it.

In short, there is a lack of the political fortitude necessary to promote the Round.

Frank Lavin

Chairman of Public Affairs, Edelman Asia Pacific; former US Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade

I do not know the answer to that question, as the signals remain highly mixed.  On the one hand, we have seen a flurry of new activity and recurring reports of a “new” attitude among the negotiators in Geneva.  It may be that we have turned a corner, and the substantive caveats simultaneously voiced by all major actors over the past month are merely tactical maneuverings to position their countries for the best national results in a coming set of compromises.  We will only know after the fact.

That said, on the basis of public statements and government stances long-held political realities seem to remain in place.  For the United States, this means that the terms of (almost) agreement in 2008 are unacceptable—even as a starting point for moving forward.  This has been true since the final months of the Bush administration and throughout the entire Obama administration.   There is a remarkably strong united front among the major economic interest groups—manufacturing, services, agriculture—in the United States that holds that little or not new market access would result from what is now on the table.  Responding to this, the Obama administration has upped the ante: the major WTO developing countries (China, Brazil, India) will have to negotiate additional market access on at least some service sectors and key industrial sectors.  Defensively, the U.S. hints at greater flexibility on lowering the agricultural subsidies beyond the $14.5 billion on the table.   In reaction, these same big developing countries continue to hold that such demands go beyond the Doha mandate.  Though they have at times given hints that they are willing to “discuss” additional obligations, they have not advanced possible compromises.

Back to the political situation in the United States: it is not clear that the purported Obama “move to the center” in general and a more positive attitude toward trade liberalization will have an impact on Doha. The major focus to date (for both the administration and Congress) is on the pending FTAs with Korea, Colombia and Panama, with the TPP looming in the background. All sides give lip service to the Doha Round, but in truth little substantive attention is evident (beyond the day-to-day work of U.S. negotiators in Geneva, flanked by the highly expensive vigilance of trade lobbyists).  Near term, there are major political kinks to be ironed out with the FTAs, particularly fights over Colombia and Panama.  In addition, USTR will have to devote huge energy to meeting the (possibly quixotic) goal of finishing the TPP negotiations by November. Thus, one wonders where the time and resources for complex Doha compromises will come from.  And, even with the alleged new impetus in Geneva, U.S. negotiators seem to have been given no new instructions: it was possibly portentous that a messy, but sincere set of compromises put forward last week by Mexico was immediately shot down, with the charge that it lacked “ambition”—i.e., didn’t go far enough toward the demands of major U.S. interest groups.

Of course, on the U.S. side all of this could pivot on a dime—the White House could realize (correctly) that completing the Doha Round would go farther than any other single trade advance to furthering it goals of doubling U.S. exports by 2014. So far the signs for this Pauline conversion are not good.

Claude Barfield

American Enterprise Institute (AEI)

I do not think the Doha Round will be concluded in 2011.  Far too much would need to be accomplished by the end of the first quarter in order for the Round to be wrapped up this year, a hard deadline would need to be set and adhered to, and negotiators would need to compromise on some very tough issues.  Frankly, the record in Geneva of the past several years does not inspire confidence that these conditions could be met.

My conclusion is supported by the views of trade experts in Geneva and around the world and reflected in the findings of a survey I released recently and which can be accessed on the “Hot Topics” page of our website (www.iit.adelaide.edu.au).

Participants in this survey agreed by a large margin (76% to 17%) that negotiators cannot wait for agriculture and NAMA modalities to be sorted out and that there now needs to be significant movement across the board.  A significant majority of all respondents (55% to 34%) also believe that for significant progress to be made, Chairpersons’ texts must be tabled by the end of the first quarter mostly on a “take it or leave it” basis – although this view is held more strongly in Geneva than by non-Geneva respondents.  By a considerable margin (56% to 30%), respondents believe that the original DDA timeframe can now be compressed so that the Round could be completed much sooner following eventual agreement on modalities.  That said, a slim majority (51%) doubts that the Doha Round could be completed by the end of 2011.  This result, however, is influenced importantly by the 63% of non-Geneva respondents that hold this view; Geneva-based respondents, by a margin of 55% to 36% are more optimistic and believe that it could be possible to finish Doha later this year.

In the survey, we asked participants whether they agreed or not with several assertions contained in the interim report of the “High Level Trade Experts Group” co-chaired by Peter Sutherland and Jagdish Bhagwati.  Overall, a majority of respondents (51% to 37%) agree with the report’s suggestion that a firm and inflexible deadline should be set for the conclusion of the Round.  A plurality of respondents (39% to 32%) disagree with the report’s assertion that the services trade negotiations now need to be the chief focus of negotiators’ energies.  Perhaps most significantly, respondents disagree rather strongly with the interim report’s conclusion that “much of what needs to be done is of relatively small size, involving little political pain”.  Overall, 60% disagree with this assertion, compared to 39% who agree.  The negative view is more strongly held outside of Geneva (64%) than by Geneva-based respondents (55%).  One might wonder how the co-chairs of the report came to hold this view of the Round.

By a very large margin (90% to 4%) respondents hold the view that little or no progress has been made in the past year on a number of outstanding issues in the agriculture modalities negotiations.  Similarly, a very large majority (86% to 4%) believes that there has been no real progress in resolving outstanding NAMA issues.  Interestingly, this negative view is held much more strongly in Geneva (93%) than by non-Geneva respondents (81%).

There is a split view among respondents on the question of whether the gap between American and China/India/Brazil on NAMA is too great to bridge.  52% of non-Geneva respondents think the gap is unbridgeable, while only 31% of Geneva-based respondents hold this view and 56% think a deal is potentially in the offing.

While experts remain in large part sceptical about the prospects for wrapping up the Round in 2011, there is a greater deal of optimism than we’ve seen for quite some time.  This means, we might at least look for very significant forward movement in the negotiations in 2011, even if it might not be possible to finalise the talks.   However, there are a number of things that probably need to happen if we are to realize the potential for substantial progress and potential conclusion of the Round.

Like it or not, revised chairpersons’ texts will be needed by the end of the first quarter and these texts will need to be largely accepted by negotiators, with only a minimum number of issues left for political-level decisions;

The new chairpersons’ texts in agriculture and NAMA will need to fit this description.  In both areas there are still far too many unresolved issues on the table and they cannot all be tossed up to Ministers for resolution;

Although we need to see progress in areas other than just agriculture and NAMA, negotiators should probably focus their energies on those areas where outcomes are key to the overall success of the Round; and,

There would be considerable value in setting a deadline for the negotiations that would be binding and inflexible.  The credibility of the system depends on this and past experience has shown that really difficult issues are not resolved before they absolutely need to be.

Could the above conditions be satisfied?  Certainly they could, but that would require some courageous action in Geneva backed by high-level political commitment in capitals.  Will these conditions be satisfied and will the Round be concluded in 2011?

I do not think so.

Andrew Stoler

Executive Director, Institute for International Trade; Former Deputy Director General Director, World Trade Organisation