Trade Policy Roundtable

What�s the State of Play in the Doha Round? (March 1, 2005)

SINCE the WTO General Council agreed the �July package� last year, the Doha Round negotiators have been pressing ahead with technical work, but the negotiations are still a long way behind schedule.  The framework agreement created an opportunity for reflection on the WTO system, as technical work proceeds, until the U.S. Congress extends the President�s trade-negotiating authority before it runs out on June 1, 2005.  The key item in the package is farm-support policies, including a commitment to eliminate agricultural export subsidies by a date certain, which is believed to have lifted the prospects overall for the negotiations.  The expectation is that, with the modalities (detailed plans) finalized this year, a fresh political impetus can be imparted to the negotiations at the WTO Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong in December.  Dr Eglin will review the state of play with the various items on the negotiating agenda � the market-access negotiations on agriculture, industrial products and services and the negotiations on WTO rules, covering regional trade agreements, trade-remedy laws and �trade facilitation�. 

After Dr Eglin�s paper, the discussion will be initiated by ANN TUTWILER, president of the International Food & Agricultural Trade Policy Council, and MARY IRACE, vice president of the National Foreign Trade Council.  HARALD B. MALMGREN, a former Deputy U.S. Trade Representative, will preside.  (See bio-notes over the page.)  The meeting, beginning at 11.00 am, will continue over a light lunch and end at 2.00 pm.

RICHARD EGLIN has been Director of Trade & Finance at the World Trade Organization in Geneva since 1998.  As such, he handles issues with the IMF and World Bank, and is also secretary of the Doha Round negotiating group on trade facilitation.  

About Those on the Program

Richard Eglin

RICHARD EGLIN has been the Director of Trade and Finance at the World Trade Organization, Geneva, since 1998.  Earlier, he headed the Development Division; and earlier still the Trade and Environment Division (1991-96) when, under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the Committee on Trade and Environment was established.  After obtaining his PhD in economics at Cambridge University in 1977, he joined the staff of the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC, and in 1985 moved to the Economic Research & Analysis Division at the GATT Secretariat. 

Dr Eglin has had articles published in various professional journals and has contributed to a number of volumes of essays, including Jagdish Bhagwati and Mathias Hirsch (eds), The Uruguay Round and Beyond (1998).  His article in the March 1987 number of The World Economy, Oxford and Boston, on �Surveillance of Balance-of-Payments Measures in the GATT� led to the little-noticed Uruguay Round understanding that saw the end of GATT Article XII being mis-used to maintain general import restrictions long after their balance-of-payments difficulties had been resolved.

Mary A. Irace

MARY IRACE is Vice President of Trade and Export Finance at the National Foreign Trade Council, Washington, DC, where she co-chairs its Doha Round working group and was the NFTC�s point person in forming the USTrade coalition.  Ms Irace was earlier chief trade policy adviser to Senator William Roth (1989-96), playing a major role in congress-ional consideration of NAFTA, the Uruguay Round agreements and renewal of China�s NTR status.  In 1986-89 she was manager of legislative affairs at Texas Instruments.

Harald B. Malmgren

HARALD MALMGREN is Chairman of Malmgren O�Donnell Ltd, a financial advisory firm, London and Washington, DC, and President of the Malmgren Group, business consultants, Warrenton, Virginia.   As  Deputy U.S. Trade Representative in 1972-75, he was closely involved in drafting the Trade Act of 1974, which introduced fast-track negotiating authority, and in launching the Tokyo Round negotiations.  Dr Malmgren has taught economics at Cornell, Georgetown, George Washington and Johns Hopkins universities. 

Ann Tutwiler

ANN TUTWILER has been President of the International Food & Agricultural Trade Policy Council, Washington, DC, since 2002 � having been a co-founder in 1987 and Associate Director until 1992.  From then until returning to the IPC she was the Director of Government Relations at Eridania Beghin Say�s North American oilseed crushing and corn refining companies.  In that role, Ms Tutwiler co-founded the Coalition for a Competitive Food and Agricultural System, which advanced some of the reforms in the 1996 Farm Bill.

The Cordell Hull Institute�s Trade Policy Roundtable is sponsored by Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, Arnold & Porter, Hogan & Hartson, Miller & Chevalier, O�Melveny & Myers, Sidley Austin Brown & Wood, Steptoe & Johnson and Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr