THE doha round – whose official name is Doha Development Agenda – is an international space for negotiations created in September 2001 at the IV Ministerial Conference of the WTO (World Trade Organization), held in Doha, Qatar. Its objective is to provide for the reduction of trade protectionism and customs barriers, as well as to resolve issues related to commercial patents.
During the launch of the Doha Round, negotiations took place involving 142 countries that divided into two blocs: the developed countries and of the underdeveloped countries. In these negotiations, it was agreed, for example, that in cases of risks to public health, patents for medicines Exclusive use of certain laboratories may be broken for use by country laboratories underdeveloped.
Scheduled to end in 2005, the Doha Round still extends to the present day. There are many impasses between the two blocs present in the negotiations, especially with regard to actions to reduce or extinguish customs tariffs. Underdeveloped countries want to reduce taxes on agricultural products they export to developed countries. On the other hand, they also want a reduction in the collection of taxes on their industrialized products.
In addition, the negotiations suffered from a stagnation with the 2008 crisis, in which countries once again raised some flags protectionism on imported products, raising their taxes and harming their competition with the products nationals. However, negotiations should be resumed as of 2014, and there is even some signal from the countries to reduce protectionism and move towards economic liberalization.
By Rodolfo Alves Pena
Graduated in Geography