Although members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) were reluctant to label the Doha development round of multilateral trade negotiations ‘dead’, Trade and Industry Minister Dr Rob Davies said that there was no hope of concluding the round in 2011, and it was time to pursue ‘plan B’.

He explained that ‘plan B’ was to decide what part of the work programme of Doha could be delivered. The idea was that member states could deliver on a smaller package, which excluded the big contentious issues of non-agricultural market access, agriculture, and services.

“The fundamental focus should be to deliver something for the least developed countries (LDCs),” said Davies. This would likely include a duty-free quota-free access agreement, opening markets to LDCs, an aid-for-trade package, which could facilitate elimination of non-tariff barriers in LDCs and a resolution of the ‘cotton dossier’, which would put a stop to subsidies for cotton farmers in the US.

“If we deliver a package for the LDCs - if we work together, and rise above our mercantilist views … and we contribute to something for the LDCs, maybe we will develop some kind of new spirit, but if we can’t, then I think its going to be a very negative signal for the multilateral process,” said Davies.

He emphasised that there had been a breakdown of the developmental focus of the round since it started in 2001. South Africa took the position that “the only kind of round worth concluding must be developmental”, which the world was not yet ready to deliver.

Davies said that the alternative to ‘plan B’ was to conclude with nothing, and he said that if WTO members could not combine to deliver something for somebody else, it showed that the round was “in a pretty sorry state”.

The Minister said that it was “hard to say” when the Doha round would be picked up in any fundamental way, and did not know when the next opportunity to deal with the contentious issues in the round might arise.

Thus the focus, from a South African position, should be on delivering something tangible for LDCs.

It was also noted that there was a perception that if multilateral trade agreements were not reached, then a country’s trade activity would suffer, but Davies said that more alternatives in developing trade relations existed now.

South Africa’s standing in the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (Brics) bloc meant that more options for trading with these countries existed. This was seen as important as China was South Africa’s number-one trading partner.

“We now have a much more multi-powered world, and many more alternatives in terms of developing trading relations. Our involvement in Brics gives us huge opportunities now to start practising different patterns of trading relationships,” said Davies.

He also noted that South Africa would soon be hosting a summit to discuss the option of a tripartite free-trade area, among the regional economic communities of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), East African Communities (EAC) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa).

The SADC EAC Comesa free-trade area could be a potential boost for trade in the region, and could also deal with infrastructural challenges, which created bottlenecks in intra-African trade.