Kyodo (Japan) reports the WTO has begun considering holding another ministerial meeting about six months after planned full-member talks slated for September in Cancun, Mexico, trade sources said Tuesday. The move indicates the WTO has effectively given up efforts to strike an accord on farm trade liberalization at the upcoming meeting, which marks a major setback for the ongoing negotiations to establish a multinational trade system, and could delay the Doha Round's overall deadline of January 1, 2005.
The extraordinary ministerial conference is likely to be held in Geneva around March 2004, they said, even though the WTO was not supposed to hold another ministerial conference after the Cancun meeting. The WTO has abandoned the possibility of reaching an agreement at the Cancun meeting because the gap between developed and developing countries could not be bridged, the sources said.