BRIDGES Weekly Trade News Digest

Lead Stories
AG CHAIR PREPARING TO REVISE TEXT, AS LAMY SAYS 'HOUR OF TRUTH RAPIDLY APPROACHING'	The chair of the troubled Doha Round agriculture talks has given Member governments until 2 November to iron out their differences. After that, he will put together a detailed new potential draft deal for make-or-break final negotiations, guessing where consensus might lie on issues for which negotiators fail to point the way to compromise.
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT RATIFIES TRIPS AMENDMENT	The European Parliament on 24 October endorsed an amendment to WTO intellectual property rules aimed at easing poor countries' access to essential medicines, after the EU's 27 member governments promised to help developing nations manufacture and import affordable drugs.
NAMA TALKS REMAIN DIVIDED, WITH TIME RUNNING OUT	WTO Members are showing few signs of narrowing their differences on manufacturing tariff cuts, the chair of the contentious talks said on 22 October, warning that the Doha Round would fail if they could not reach an agreement by the end of the year.
FISHERIES NEGOTIATING TEXT DUE SOON, SAYS CHAIR	The chair of the Doha Round negotiations on rules governing fisheries subsidy spending has said that he is ready to issue a draft agreement text to serve as the basis for future discussions, though this would depend to some extent on the agriculture and industrial goods talks.
AG NEGOTIATORS HAGGLE OVER BASE PERIODS FOR GREEN BOX PAYMENTS	The mediator of the struggling Doha Round farm trade talks says that Members are at long last moving forward, albeit incrementally. However, the movement has been on 'technical' issues rather than the big 'political' questions, such as subsidy spending caps, which negotiators say can only be resolved at the ministerial level.

In Brief	WTO in Brief
	Egyptian Anti-Dumping Proposal under Fire Because of 'Zeroing'

Events        &        Resources
Events	26 October, Manila, Philippines. INEQUALITY AND GROWTH. The seminar will provide updated cross-country evidence on the relationship between income inequality and economic performance in the context of globalization. The presence of an inverse-U-shaped relationship, the Kuznets curve, between income inequality and GDP per capital has been found across many countries and over time. Yet the Kuznets curve fails to explain much of the variation in income inequality. In terms of the impact of income inequality on GDP growth rates, existing theories provide little clear empirical predictions on the overall relationship. In fact, there is some evidence that inequality is bad for growth in poor countries and good for growth in rich countries. Internet: http://www.adb.org/Documents/Events/2007/Inequality-Growth/default.asp
Resources	PROCESS MATTERS: SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND DOMESTIC TRADE TRANSPARENCY. Edited by Mark Halle and Robert Wolfe. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2007. Broad public education and focused solicitation of information from economic actors contribute to a trade policy that will be both legitimate and effective. This book contributes to a growing literature on the national trade policy process. Does an open and transparent process alter the way a government perceives the public interest? Or is trade policy still dominated by whoever has the ear of government? These questions are addressed in case studies of Canada, Norway, the Netherlands, Brazil, India and South Africa. The authors assess the policy process both in terms of transparency and of opportunities for meaningful participation by stakeholders ranging from export-oriented commercial organizations to rejectionist NGOs. The book also illuminates how the policy process can contribute to sustainable development by ensuring that the needs of growth, the environment and social cohesion are all considered. If trade policy is made in the light of day, then there is a chance that it will not merely serve the interests of a narrow elite. Available online at http://www.iisd.org/pdf/2007/process_matters.pdf.
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.