Archive - 2006

Government

A two-week 'cluster' on services ended at the WTO last Friday (7 April), after a flurry of meetings on several sectors, which marked the start of the new 'plurilateral method' of negotiations.

The prospects for successfully concluding the Doha Round of World Trade Organization talks by the end of the year appear to have dwindled significantly in recent weeks, sources said April 7, as the United States and the European Union continue to be at odds over the make-or-break issue of agriculture.

European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson scorned as 'offensive' a U.S. lawmaker's proposal to drop the EU as a partner, highlighting the obstacles to a new World Trade Organization agreement.

The WTO's Director General Pascal Lamy by all accounts is sticking to the end-April deadline for reaching agreement on modalities for agriculture and non-agriculture market access (NAMA).

The 8th Conference of the Parties (COP 8) to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) ended late in the night on the last day of the meeting (31 March) with agreement on how to progress on access and benefit sharing (ABS), a key issue that has dogged the CBD for many years.

Below are the links for your information the following documents on the Malaysia-US FTA opposition that is building up in Malaysia.

The WTO's Director General Pascal Lamy by all accounts is sticking to the end-April deadline for reaching agreement on modalities for agriculture and non-agriculture market access (NAMA).

Gov. John Baldacci has sent a letter to the U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman, stating that Maine would not be covered by the World Trade Organization's service-sector rules in the General Agreement on Trade in Services.

Concerned that state public services could be threatened by World Trade Organization negotiations in Geneva this week, Gov. John E. Baldacci has asked federal trade officials to exempt Maine from the WTO's service sector rules.