Will the Doha Round be concluded in 2011?

The Doha Round of trade negotiations has been going on since 2001, without any advancement being made in the past years. Now trade ministers and Pascal Lamy have taken the initiative to try to finish the Doha Round before the end of 2011, and a recent report by an export group – the so-called Sutherland-Bhagwati group – argued that this should be a hard deadline after which the round expires if there is no result. After the global economic crisis and the rush to protectionism, is there now a chance for the Doha Round to be concluded. And is it really possible it can be concluded before the end of the year? In this symposium trade experts and scholars from various parts of the world give their views. Many of the have focused on bilateral US-China trade relations, but several participants also examines what needs to happen in agriculture, NAMA and services negotiations for the Round to be concluded.

Published on February 18, 2011