Qatar Chamber is seeking to revive the ‘Doha Round’ negotiations with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) after a 12-year deadlock, an official said.
The Doha Round is part of trade negotiations among WTO membership, and aims to achieve major reforms in the international trading system through the introduction of lower trade barriers and revised trade rules.
Qatar Chamber chairman Sheikh Khalifa bin Jassim al-Thani, who is also the chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Qatar, said the chamber adopted the World Trade Agenda (WTA) initiative in 2013, in cooperation with ICC, “to push forward the Doha Round.”
“The chamber is supported and encouraged by the government of Qatar to determine many priorities, which were submitted during the ‘9th Ministerial Conference’ of the World Trade Organisation held in 2013 in Bali.
“This resulted in achieving the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement, which was created to ensure revenues through trade overseas and provide job opportunities for developing and least-developed countries”, he noted.
The WTA is an initiative of Qatar Chamber and ICC launched 2013, aimed at mobilising global business to help governments set key multilateral trade negotiation priorities.
The ICC works with the international private sector and governments to set priority areas where WTO members can feasibly achieve results that will have a measurable impact on trade-led growth and development.
Sheikh Khalifa said Qatar Chamber “played an important role” by initiating the revival of the Doha Round and in the signing of the 2013 WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement. This, he said, “is positively reflected in the support of SMEs among countries and contributed to prevailing global security and stability.”
Earlier, the ‘WTA Day’ initiative of ICC and Qatar Chamber held in London saw the launching of the European Centre for International Policy’s report titled ‘Building for Success: A World Trade Agenda for the Buenos Aires Ministerial’.
Sheikh Khalifa pointed out that London event discussed several issues related to facilitating global trade and trade priorities. He underscored the importance of the report, which will discuss the ‘Doha Agenda’ initiative at the next WTO meeting slated in December in Buenos Aires.
The report stressed that the WTO “should respond to current challenges with renewed action, deploying better defences against protectionism and crafting actions that would have a meaningful impact on trade and economic growth, especially in the area of digital trade policy.”
Sheikh Khalifa: Important role.
