WTO Members Failing To Reach Global Trade Deal

The Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Roberto Azevedo, has said that negotiations on the first global trade deal in the organization's history are on the brink of collapse.

The WTO members have come "very close to fully agreed texts," Azevedo said, but "over the last few days, we stopped making the tough political calls."

Talks on the global trade deal, which could potentially add nearly USD1 trillion to the world economy, began in 2001.

However, the failure of the WTO members to produce the text of a global agreement ahead of a meeting of trade ministers in Bali, Indonesia next month means a deal is unlikely to be reached.

Azevedo warned that a "failure in Bali will have grave consequences for the multilateral trading system."

He went on to say: "We will fail not only the WTO and multilateralism. We will also fail our constituencies at large, the business community and, above all, the most vulnerable among us. We will fail the poor worldwide. Not a single human being living in poverty anywhere in the world will be better off if we fail in Bali."

Source: Tax News