Scoping the End-Game in the Doha Round : A Roundtable Discussion

On February 17-18, 2005, the Centre for International Governance Innovation at the University of Waterloo and the International Development Research Centre, in co-ordination with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade convened an informal meeting of leading observers of the international trade and investment scene for a discussion of the progress of the Doha Development Agenda as the focus shifted to the scoping out of the "end game" for the negotiations and more particularly to the preparations for the Sixth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) at Hong Kong, China, December 2005. The goal of the roundtable discussion was to share views on the progress of negotiations and the prospects for an ambitious outcome, taking into account the geopolitical and international macroeconomic context; to discuss issues that might usefully be addressed given the directions being taken in the negotiations; and to identify areas where analytic work might facilitate further progress. This note represents the Chair's thematic summary of the discussions