ECIPE Lunch-time Roundtable: Restoring Multilateral Trade Cooperation
That the World Trade Organization has been in the grip of a systemic crisis since 2008 is well known.
Notwithstanding relatively minor successes at the Bali Ministerial in December 2013, the WTO’s negotiating function remains effectively stalled. The Nairobi Ministerial, set to take place in December 2015, is not likely to yield systemic solutions, notably to break the Doha Round impasse.
The World Trade Organization enters a period of readjustment and there is a need to search for new ideas that can assist in revitalising multilateral trade negotiations and which respond to emerging trends in global trade, such as the rise of mega-regional groups and the growth of global value chains.
Programme
Mr Draper, Managing Director of TUTWA Consulting and Ms Dube, Senior Researcher in South African Insitute of International Affairs (SAIIA), who are part of the World Bank-funded project in partnership with a network of primarily developing-world think tanks, will discuss what these changes mean for global trade, and how negotiations can be realigned to overcome the deadlock.
They will present a diagnostic report that is an outcome of a series of expert roundtables convened in major emerging economies producing outputs that feed into multilateral trade negotiations.
The comments will be given by Mr Garzotti, Head of WTO coordination, OECD, Export Credits and Dual Use Unit, Directorate-General for Trade.
Sandwich lunch will be served after the event
Location
