Over to Bali, Indonesia

The serene environs of Bali will host the next Ministerial Conference (MC9) of the WTO in December 2013. I had earlier blogged about this here. Will we see some headway in the Doha rounds of negotiations here? The WTO website announced the MC9 here. The ground rules were set:

"Also resulting from her consultations, the chair proposed the following principles "to guide both the preparations for MC9 and the Conference itself":

• First, the “FIT” principle — Full participation, Inclusiveness, and Transparency;

• Second, any issue for action or decision by Ministers proposed by members should be developed by them in line with the normal consensus principle; and

• Third, issues for action or decision by Ministers should be agreed well before MC9."

Will the salubrious setting of Bali break the Doha deadlock? Will it lead to a meaningful advancement of the Doha round? Will we see the single undertaking principle given up for "low hanging fruit" agreements? Will we see a turn around in negotiations at the multilateral level? If any decisions are to culminate in Bali, the next 10 months would involve extensive negotiations to reach that goal.

Over to Bali.