The citizens of Hong Kong experienced a tough time in the third week of December. The reason was very obvious. The country was hosting the sixth WTO Ministerial Conference. A certain section of the crowd held peaceful demonstrations even as several thousands of activists and farmers agitated in close proximity of the World Trade Organization center. This article discuses the grueling issues that made headlines during the meet.

The liberalization drive that is being promoted by the WTO has a potential to lead to the closure of local firms, resulting in the loss of livelihoods to many farmers. That is a cause of concern since in the past also, liberalization has proved disastrous for several local firms leading to their closure. With tariffs going down followed by cheaper imports, there is always a possibility of local products and jobs getting displaced. At the same time, one cannot ignore the brighter side of liberalization. Liberalization leads to the increase in exports that brings with it more jobs and revenues. At the same time, it needs to be kept in mind that not all countries possess the production capacity and efficiency to take the fullest of the advantage. There are some countries that benefit out of it while certain countries find it difficult to generate any gains out of the same. In the recently concluded sixth ministerial conference, both the aspects of fear of losing out the imports as well as the potential of increasing the exports were the center of discussion.

The six days of the conference were not free from brouhahas. There were several issues. Some of them had positive implications whereas some of the outcomes were shrouded in uncanny ambiguities. Let us start the discussion with the positive outcomes. The biggest success that emerged out of the discussion was the concerted decision that one would not sacrifice the Doha Round at the cost of minimal national economic interests. Further there was also agreement on the fact that all the developed countries arrived at pertaining to the ending of all export subsidies by the end of 2013 and to begin the process of substantial reduction before that period, though the developing nations preferred a timeline of 2010. This was added to the removal of the cotton subsidies by the next year. Cotton exports from the Least Developed Countries (LDC) were allowed into the developed countries with zero duty.

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