WTO talks an unfair match that pits the rich against the poor

NAIROBI: If you lock powerful trading giants of the West in the same room with our small economies from the Third World to negotiate, chances are there will be no outcome because they are simply not on the same plane. Or if at all there will be a deal, it will be a raw one. In its 20 years of existence, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has not created a level playing field that would ensure benefits for all its member countries, some of whom hardly do any international trade.

Setting rules for global trade that would please small farmers in Asia and Africa, and multinational corporations in Europe and America at the same time was not going to be easy anyway, and that’s the trouble with WTO. The big players are determined to set these rules, and they invariably do so in fine print but the small players often fail to notice it. However, 20 years later, some emerging economies are a bit wiser and may not walk into the negotiations blindfolded and hence the slow pace.