Drugs deal boosts trade talks

A Ground-breaking agreement yesterday to ease poor states access to vital medicines has given a much-needed boost to troubled negotiations on freeing up global trade just days before a crucial summit. A deal on medicines is a key part of the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) Doha Round of trade talks, and negotiators were racing to strike a deal before ministers meet to review the round's progress in Cancun, Mexico, early next month.

The round, whose success is seen as vital to boosting the world economy, has missed a series of past deadlines for accords, including on the drugs issue and agriculture, and a further failure would have been a severe blow, envoys said. WTO director-general Supachai Panitckpakdi applauded yesterday's pact, approved by the trade body's executive General Council after days of often highly charged debate, saying it showed the trade body was still able to deliver on its promises.

The full name of the round, launched in the Qatari capital in late 2001, is the Doha Development Agenda, because rich states had pledged to give special emphasis to poorer countries' needs in return for their agreeing to negotiate on further lowering barriers to global business. Reaching the deal on drugs, which allows poorer states to set aside the patent rights of big multinationals and import cheap generic drugs under certain circumstances, had become a symbol of rich state willingness to honour their pledge.

The decision should help lower the cost of life-saving drugs in Africa and elsewhere where some six million people die each year of AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis alone. "It has built back the level of trust we will need to succeed... (and)... demonstrates that the development dimension of the round that was promised at Doha can be delivered," Supachai said.

Existing world trade rules allow countries with their own drugs industry to waive patent rights and issue compulsory licences to generic manufacturers when they face health problems, but they say nothing about states without their own drugs industry - which is most poor countries. Ministers had agreed in Doha that a solution had to be found but agreeing on the technical details, with big drug companies suspicious that any system could be abused, took months of often acrimonious wrangling.

But even with the drugs issue settled, trade ministers face a daunting task when they meet between September 10 and 14 for what has been billed a "make or break" session for the round, envoys say. Unless they can bridge some of their differences on key issues, which separate not just rich from poor but also often see developing states in opposing camps, there is a risk that the trade talks could stall completely.

Trade negotiators in Geneva were supposed to have reached agreement on detailed blueprints for reform of world farm trade, including steps towards eliminating rich state subsidies and significant cuts in support to farmers, as well as a plan for liberalising trade in industrial goods. Instead they will be taking vaguely worded drafts, drawn up by the General Council's president, Uruguayan ambassador Carlos Perez del Castillo, that testify to the continuing wide divisions.