WTO CONFERENCE: RELATION OF REGIONAL, MULTILATERAL COOPERATION

ZAGREB, June 12 (Hina) - Regional trade agreements currently cover more than 50 percent of global trade, which often causes standstills in negotiations on multilateral liberalisation of trade within the framework of the World Trade Organisation. #L# The standstills in negotiations are often the result of disputes between WTO members, which slows down the organisation's work, WTO trade policy department director Clem Boonekamp said at the beginning of the second day of the WTO ministerial conference fort countries of Central and Southeastern Europe which is held in Zagreb. According to Boonekamp, more attention is paid to antidumping decisions than to the problem about regional trade agreements, although they currently encompass only two to three percent of world trade. Only five WTO members are currently not involved in some form of regional cooperation, and these members are in negotiations. Such agreements are more than 250 across the works, and they do not make just a regional, but also a global network of various agreements on free trade, customs union or some other form of preferential trade relations. This is why one can call these agreements discriminatory, as opposed to WTO's multilateral trade system, Boonekamp said. Solving conflicts, that is, harmonising regional and multilateral agreements, was one of the goals of last year's WTO ministerial conference in Doha, which is the reason for the subject to be included on the agenda of this conference for countries of Central and Southeastern Europe. The ministerial conference, gathering about 120 participants from 18 countries of the region and a number of international institutions, will end today after an afternoon discussion on the subject of challenges and opportunities in the multilateral trade system. (hina) lml