BRIDGES Weekly Trade News Digest

Lead Stories
NAMA DIVISIONS COME TO THE FORE AS NEW MODALITIES PUSH BEGINS IN EARNEST	WTO Members appear set to make their most concerted attempt yet to reach an agreement in the troubled Doha Round negotiations. Although differences on farm trade have hogged the limelight since the talks began in 2001, negotiators say that it has now become apparent that divisions on industrial tariffs are no less serious. In fact, while there have recently been hints of rapprochement on some agriculture issues, similar shifts were pointedly absent from last week's discussions on non-agricultural market access (NAMA) at WTO headquarters in Geneva.
G-20, G-33 MINISTERS UNDERLINE PRIORITIES BEFORE "DECISIVE PHASE" IN DOHA TALKS	Ministers and top officials from a wide range of developing countries came to Geneva on 11 June to express solidarity and call for action on their countries' concerns, as the troubled Doha round talks enter what they described as a "decisive phase." They reiterated calls for rich countries, especially the US, to offer deeper farm subsidy cuts; several warned that they would not accept disproportionate demands to reduce their own industrial tariffs.
US TRADE POLICY STUCK IN NEUTRAL AS TPA MANDATE WINDS DOWN	One month after the Bush administration and leading Democrats struck a much-touted compromise on trade, the immediate future of US trade policy remains murky. Persistent scepticism in sections of Congress about the benefits of economic globalisation means that support for some bilateral trade deals is far from clear. So too is willingness to renew the president's negotiating authority - necessary for the Doha Round WTO talks.
TRIPS: MEMBERS STILL DIVIDED ON BIODIVERSITY, GIs, AND ENFORCEMENT	WTO Members continue to broadly disagree on how best to achieve the objectives of biodiversity conservation and intellectual property protection. The issue, along with the enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPRs), featured prominently in discussions during a 5 June meeting of the TRIPS Council. Separate informal consultations on another contentious intellectual property issue -- the protection of geographical indications (GIs) -- took place the following day.
TRADE FACILITATION TALKS AIM TO MOVE TOWARDS DRAFT AGREEMENT TEXT	The chair of the WTO talks on trade facilitation (TF) told Members during a 7-8 June meeting that there is no time to waste if they want to be able to start negotiating the text of a future agreement on cutting red tape and other obstacles to the trade and transit of goods by July. Urgency notwithstanding, delegates say that the discussions on trade facilitation have moved forward more steadily than those in other areas of the troubled Doha Round negotiations.
SVEs AND ACP GROUP WEIGH IN ON FISH SUBSIDIES DEBATE	Different blocs of WTO Members have moved to protect their interests in the Doha Round fisheries subsidies negotiations, circulating separate communications around an early-June deadline for submitting proposals for discussion at a meeting of the Negotiating Group on Rules later this week. The group of African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) states sought to ensure that access fees - payments in return for rights to fish in a country's territorial waters - remained shielded from new subsidy disciplines.

In Brief	WTO in Brief
WIPO Development Agenda Committee Gets to Grips with Tricky Issues	Canada Requests Panel in US Farm Subsidy Dispute WTO Reports Slight Increase in Anti-Dumping Investigations

Events        &        Resources
Events	3-15 June, The Hague, Netherlands. FOURTEENTH MEETING OF THE CONFERENCE OF THE PARTIES TO CITES. Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) will consider 40 new proposals for rules changes regarding the protection of specific species. Participants will also discuss enforcement of CITES regulations, the control of illicit trafficking, and the effects of CITES rules on the rural poor. The meeting's agenda also includes the establishment of a new strategic vision for 2008 to 2013. For more information, email cites@unep.ch. internet: http://www.cites.org/eng/cop/index.shtml
Resources	2007 WORLD ECONOMIC SITUATION AND PROSPECTS (MID-YEAR UPDATE). By the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, June 2007. This mid-year update emphasizes that the world economy is still strongly tied to US fortunes and, for current world economic growth rates to continue, it is crucial to keep the US dollar from falling rapidly while also avoiding a recession. It also highlights the importance of improving the employment effects of positive growth in order to meet the Millennium Development Goals. The update is available at http://www.un.org/esa/policy/wess/wesp.html.
BRIDGES Weekly Trade News Digest is made possible through the generous support of the Government of the United Kingdom (DFID) and ICTSD's core donors including the Governments of Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden; Christian Aid (UK) and NOVIB (NL). BRIDGES Weekly also benefits from support for the BRIDGES series of publications from donors including the Rockefeller Foundation and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.