标题: Defrosting Doha 解冻多哈 Jul 17th 2008 From The Economist print edition Within a week the Doha round of trade talks could be ready to serve or left to rot 一周之内，多哈回合的结果就可能准备启动或者等待弃置 FROM hope to acrimony; from acrimony to apathy; and now back towards hope again: the Doha round of world trade talks has almost come full circle. Launching the round in Qatar’s capital city in November 2001, as the world reeled from terrorist outrages and the dotcom bust, trade ministers declared their determination to liberalise trade so that “the system plays its full part in promoting recovery, growth and development.” By 2003 the hope had gone: a ministerial meeting in Cancún, a Mexican resort, broke up early amid angry recriminations. Two years ago progress was so feeble that Pascal Lamy, director-general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), suspended negotiations. 从希望到对峙；从对峙到意兴阑珊；现在又回到希望。多哈回合的世界贸易会谈几乎要 走完一个循环。自2001年十一月多哈会谈在卡达的首都开启，以因应嚣张的恐怖攻击还有 达康产业泡沫化，各国贸易首长宣示了他们要将贸易自由化的意念，好让「系统能够 充分展现自行恢复、成长、发展的机制。」到2003年，所有希望幻灭了：一场在墨西哥 CANCUN的首长会谈在相互攻讦的气氛下宣告破裂。两年前，进展几乎停滞的情况让 世贸组织总干事PASCAL LAMY宣布所有谈判停摆。 Many wrote the round off at that point. Yet for the past year or so trade negotiators in Geneva have been chiselling away at the areas of disagreement. They have sculpted enough, Mr Lamy believes, for him to gather a group of around 40 ministers at the WTO’s lakeside headquarters to try to shape a deal. Their deliberations, which are due to last a week, begin on July 21st. Success would mean that a conclusion to the round the world forgot could at last be contemplated. At the core of an agreement would be cuts in allowable subsidies to farmers and lower tariff ceilings for both agricultural and industrial goods. 之後，许多评论宣布多哈回合已死。但从去年开始，在日内瓦的贸易谈判人员开始 搓和各方歧异。LAMY相信这些谈判人员的成果足够让他得以召集近四十位部长级 官员齐赴WTO的湖边总部拟出一份协议。他们约一周左右的协商过程会於7月21号开始。 若协商成功，则可意味世界已经逐渐遗忘的多哈会谈可能终於有个值得讨论的结论。 协议的核心将会是降低农业补贴额度以及更低的农业与工业产品的关税上限。 Mr Lamy’s invitation is something of a gamble, but he attaches great importance to reaching agreement in 2008. Early in the year, some trade officials hoped for a ministerial meeting in April, then the talk turned to May, then June. Mr Lamy could not have left it much later. The timetable is getting tight. European officialdom is about to enter its summer lull, India’ s minority government is in a precarious position and America’s presidential and congressional elections are looming. Details, details LAMY的邀请赌博成分居多，但他将仍强调逾2008年达成协议的重要性。今年初，一些 贸易官员表示希望於四月会有一场部长级会议，接着又变成五月，然後六月。LAMY几 乎不可能延到更後的日期了。时间表越来越紧。欧洲各部会即将进入他们的夏日假期， 而印度的少数政府处境正尴尬，且美国的总统和国会选举就将要举行。 Even if ministers reach agreement in Geneva, officials will still have lots to sort out. The deal’s basic formulae will have to be converted into tariff schedules for thousands of products, controversial rules on anti-dumping must be thrashed out, and the services negotiations must catch up. And success is far from guaranteed. Talks have centred on two main areas: trade in farm goods and industrial products (non-agricultural market access, or NAMA, in WTO jargon). The ambassadors who chair the WTO’s agriculture and NAMA negotiations have smoothed out a lot of rough areas, but would still have liked to leave ministers with less work to do. Talks on NAMA have continued this week. 就算各部长在日内瓦达成协议，各部会官员仍然有很多善後要做。协议的基本公式需要 被转换成为几千项商品的关税日程，而争议性极大的反倾销规章要被废止，服务部门 谈判必须要赶进度。会谈主要集中在两个面向：农业商品贸易与工业产品贸易（或非农业 产品之市场进入，NAMA）。主持WTO的农业和NAMA协商的大使们已经把麻将大致搓平了， 但他们应该还希望能够让各部长的工作能更平顺一点。NAMA协商这礼拜仍在持续。 Broadly speaking, Europe and India are under attack for wanting to spare too many farm products from deeper tariff cuts; some developing countries are being asked to reduce industrial tariffs further and faster; and America is under pressure to do more to cap trade-distorting subsidies to its farmers. 大体上来说，欧洲和印度多受责难，因为他们希望能让太多像农产品免受过高的关税 之苦；一些发展中国家责备要求以更大幅度和更快的速度来降低工业关税；而美国 则被要求要抑制他们干预贸易市场的农民补助津贴上限。 This last issue, in particular, could be a deal-breaker. India’s commerce minister, Kamal Nath, wants America to cap its farm spending at last year’s total minus one dollar. The draft agreement suggests limits much higher than this ($13 billion-16.4 billion). That would do little to constrain America’s potential spending, except perhaps on cotton and sugar. 特别是最後这个议题可能使协议订定失败。印度的商业部长KAMAL NATH希望美国能够抑制 政府的农业项目支出到去年总额减一美元。协议草案则订出更高的限度（130亿至164亿 美元）。这对於控制美国潜在农业支出意义不大（可能除了棉花跟糖之外）。 The chief reason for urgency is to complete a deal before George Bush leaves office. This may seem curious, because he is in no position to get a Doha deal through Congress. He lacks “trade promotion authority” (TPA)—the right to negotiate a trade agreement and present a bill to lawmakers for a straight yes-or-no vote without amendment—and will not get it now. Congress is in no mood to give it to him, and time is running out. 协议订定时间表如此紧迫的原因是，要赶在布希卸任之前。这或许看来很奇怪，因为 布希并没有任何空间让多哈协议自国会通过。他并没有「贸易促进权」（TPA）─即 权力进行贸易协定谈判并提出法案给国会不修正直接表决─现在也不会有。国会不爽 给他，时间也快没了。 The best hope instead is to pass a finished, or nearly finished, agreement on to John McCain or Barack Obama. It is possible that the new president may dislike the deal so much that he seeks to renegotiate it or rejects it altogether. But renegotiation would be time-consuming at best, impossible at worst. Rejection would wreck the WTO for years, perhaps for good. 最理想的状况反而是通过一个完整的、或几乎完整的协定给MCCAIN或OBAMA。新总统可能 不爱这个协议到他希望要重新谈判或彻底弃置这个协定。但重新谈判的最好情况是 旷日废时，而最坏的情况则是完全不可能。弃置决定则会重创WTO多年，甚至摧毁WTO。 If he were to inherit a package that is complete or close to it, President McCain or President Obama would have something to press on the new Congress, perhaps after asking for TPA to wrap up the remaining details. He could even sell it as much-needed balm for an ailing global economy. Craig VanGrasstek, of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and Washington Trade Report, a newsletter, points to a precedent: when Bill Clinton took office in 1993, he asked Congress for a brief extension of fast-track authority, as TPA was then known, to complete the Uruguay round of world trade talks. Mr Clinton used this to get the round through in 1994 with relatively little fuss; he also secured the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), although with rather more. 如果新任总统会继承一份完整或几乎完整的协定，新总统至少会有个立足点要求新国会 至少给个TPA来完成协定。新总统甚至可以用之为急盼的甘霖来解救陷入困境的全球 经济。哈佛甘乃迪政府学院和WASHINGTON TRADE REPORT的CRAIG VANGRASSTEK提出了一 个前例。CLINTON於1993年掌政时，就要求国会短暂延长贸易谈判快线权（TPA的前身） 好完成乌拉圭回合的世贸会谈。CLINTON就以此权限让1994年乌拉圭回合在极少的风波下 有个结果；他也把北美自由贸易协定给定了下来，虽然过程比较复杂些。 But if Mr Bush leaves him with a lot of work still to finish, the new president may well conclude that he has better things to do. By 2010 such momentum as there is for a Doha round agreement may have been lost. “If it’ s not concluded this year, it won’t be concluded next year and by 2010 the caravans will have moved on elsewhere,” said Peter Mandelson, the European Union’s trade commissioner, at the World Economic Forum in January. “Not only will the caravans have moved on in different directions of trade negotiations, but what has already been on the table…will have been put into deep freeze.” 但如果BUSH把一堆事情留给新总统，那新总统可能会觉得他有更重要的事情要做。 若拖到2010年，现在涌起的多哈回合协定契机可能就荡然无存了。「不是这年完成的话， 下年就不可能，然後到了2010年各商队就会自求生路去了，」欧盟贸易执行长 PETER MANDELSON在一月的世界经济论坛李说道。「不仅各商队会朝不同的商贸协商 前进，那些已经摆在桌上的就会被冷冻起来。」 Back into the fridge 回到冰库里 The consequences of putting the Doha round into cold storage come in two parts. The more nebulous, but arguably more important, is the long-term effect on the future of trade and the world economy. 多哈回合冷冻的结果有两个部份。比较隐晦但比较重要的，未来贸易以及全球经济的 长期影响。 You might suppose that it would not matter much. Despite all Doha’s difficulties, world trade has been growing nicely without it (see chart). Developed countries’ tariffs on industrial goods, at least, are already low. Developing countries have been opening up too, cutting tariffs to levels well below the ceilings negotiated at the WTO. Trade in services has been getting freer, although many countries’ WTO commitments are still patchy. And countries have become much more welcoming to foreign investment, which the Doha round does not even address. 或许你会认为关连性没这麽直接。尽管多哈回合历经多劫，世界贸易仍然持续成长。 已开发国家的工业产品关税已堪称甚低。开发中国家也在逐渐开放，将关税降低到 远低於WTO协商的上限。服务贸易部分也逐渐自由化，即便许多国家的WTO承诺仍嫌简陋。 各国也越来越欢迎外资进注，而这是多哈回合连提都没提的面象。 Look beyond the formalities of tariffs and investment agreements, to the nuts and bolts of modern commerce, and you may even conclude that it had become irreversibly integrated. Time was when almost every bit of a car, say, was made in one country, from the steel that formed its body to the leather on its seats. Now a supply chain of myriad links runs all around the world, connecting designers, chipmakers, car-parts firms and assembly lines. 若看穿形式化的关税和投资协定，注意现代商贸的每个螺丝螺帽，你可能会下个结论， 认为现代商贸已经整合到无法反转的地步了。曾有个时代是一部车的每个部件都产自於 同一个国家，从车身的钢到座椅的皮革。现在则是一个以世界组成的复杂供给链， 连结社记者，晶片制造者，汽车配件商还有各种生产线。 Granted, if the Doha round fails, the world will not end. Nevertheless, it would be wrong—and complacent—to suppose that failure would be costless. For a start, the world economy is troubled. Doha will not repair housing markets or ease credit constraints. But in difficult times calls for trade protection get louder, and may be heard favourably by politicians. This would be a bad moment, therefore, to turn away from further liberalisation. And the WTO as an institution would be damaged. The chances of another go at liberalisation soon, after an abject failure, would be slim. 或可大胆的说，世界不会因为多哈回合的失败而毁灭。但要认为这个失败会没有代价 是太果断（甚至太脱节）了些。首先，世界经济有困扰了。多哈不会修补房市或减缓 信贷困局。但时节困难时贸易保护主义高涨，甚至可能会获得政客的青睐。这种时候 背离自由经济会是个不恰当的时机。而WTO这个机构会受重创。一次自由化步伐悲惨 受挫後马上又来一次的机率甚低。 Already there are some signs of rising hostility to trade. The plainest are the taxes or bans imposed by some countries on food exports in response to the rapid increase in prices. This is not protection as usually practised—in the Doha round, countries have been negotiating to end subsidies, not taxes, on farm exports. But had the negotiations been starting now, such gross impediments to trade might well have been on the agenda. 已经开始有一些反贸易的迹象出现了。最明显的就是一些国家为因应食物价格飙涨而 针对食物出口所订定的各种税制还有禁令。这不是正常的保护主义手段─在多哈回合中， 许多国家都在协商要终止农业出口的补贴，而非税制。但若此时协商已然开始，这种 粗糙的贸易限制就会成为讨论焦点。 Another straw in the wind is the difficult progress of some regional trade agreements. Last year America’s Congress passed a free-trade deal with Peru; this year it has stalled on one with Colombia. Any misgivings in Washington about an agreement with South Korea have been more than matched on the streets of Seoul, where thousands have protested against the prospect of American beef imports. Economists view bilateral and regional deals as a mixed blessing. But if hostility towards such agreements denotes unease about trade in general, it is a worrying sign. 另一个明显的迹象就是一些地域性贸易协定进展牛步。去年，美国国会通过了与秘鲁 的自由贸易协定；今年与哥伦比亚的自由贸易协定则毫无进展。美国与南韩的牛肉进口 贸易协定在华盛顿引起的疑虑足可与首尔街头数千名抗议民众匹敌。经济学家视双边和 地域性协定为利弊交杂的利多。但如果针对这些协定的敌意实际上是对於贸易整体的 戒心，那就是个值得忧心的现象了。 And it is possible to imagine the world economy becoming less integrated. It has happened before: the fairly free world economy of the late 19th century was riddled with protectionism by the 1930s. Then, says Jeffry Frieden, a political scientist at Harvard, trading powers turned towards their empires; nowadays they would be more likely to turn towards regional blocks, such as the EU and NAFTA. An unwinding of globalisation, he thinks, is not likely but not implausible either. “The picture of an irreversibly integrated and globalised international economy is overdrawn,” he says. 当然，也可能把世界经济视为整合性没有这麽强的经济体。这之前也发生过：19世纪 末叶颇为自由的世界经济被1930的保护主义给意志了。那时，哈佛政治学者 JEFFRY FRIEDEN，贸易强权就指望着他们的帝国後盾；现在他们比较倾向倚仗区域集团， 如欧盟跟北美自由贸易协定。FRIEDEN认为，松弛的全球化不是太可能，但也不是没有 根据。「一个紧密整合的全球化国际经济体是太夸张了些，」他说。 The second lot of costs is more direct. If there is no agreement, what will the WTO’s members leave on the table? Measuring this is hard, partly because members of the WTO negotiate over “bound” (maximum) tariffs and ceilings on agricultural subsidies. Much of the deal would lower these ceilings rather than produce true cuts. For example, the latest text implies that Chile would cut its bound industrial duties from 25% to around 12%; its applied rate is only 6%. This is still worth doing because it limits backsliding. 多哈失败的第二个後果比较直接明显。如果没有协定，WTO会员们在台面上还会留什麽？ 要衡量这个比较困难，因为WTO会员国讨论的是关税上限以及农业补贴上限。协议主要 会是降低这些上限，而非任何确实的数字递减。例如，最近的文献指出智利会把工业关税 上限从25％调低至12％；实际采用的税率只有6％。当然，降低上限仍有价值，因为可以 限制走回头路的空间。 Another reason is the sheer complexity of any likely deal. In NAMA, the basis of the draft text is a formula connecting new tariffs to old ones. But there are different parameters for developed and developing countries. Developing countries will be able to choose between shallower cuts across the board and exempting some goods from the formula in return for deeper cuts on the rest. Some have additional exceptions. In agriculture, there are similar complications. For instance, countries can declare some goods to be “ sensitive” products. They will be permitted to cut their tariffs on these goods by less, in exchange for letting in larger amounts at lower rates of duty. 另一个原因则是任何协议都有明显的复杂度。NAMA的基本草案是个把新关税跟就关税 连接起来的公式。但已开发国家跟开发中国家有不同的参数。开发中国家可以就较低 幅度的关税减免，和排除计算某些商品於公式之中来换取其他商品较大幅度的关税减免 这两项中二择一。一些国家有额外的特例。农业协商也有同样的复杂问题。举例来说， 一些国家可以列举一些商品为「敏感」产品。他们於是可以用较低的幅度调降这些商品 的关税，来换取这些商品必须以更大的进口量来换取更低关税的条件。 Even so, despite all the exemptions and wiggle room, the deal contains the promise of real liberalisation. Cuts in some bound tariffs will bite into applied rates too. The EU’s duty on cars would come down from 10% to about 4.5%; its rate on canned tuna would tumble from 24% to about 6%. China’s tariff on cars could come down from 25% to 18% even if it takes advantage of the exemptions to the NAMA formula. 即便有这麽多的特例跟斡旋空间，多哈协定有真正自由化的希望空间。一些关税上限的 调降也会影响真实关税的数字。欧盟的汽车关税会从10％掉到4.5％；鲔鱼罐头的关税 会从24％掉到6％。就算中国要采用NAMA公式的特例，中国的汽车关税仍会从25％降到 18％。 Importantly for developing countries, tariff escalation—the levying of higher tariffs on processed goods than on raw materials—would be scaled back. Tariff escalation is, in effect, a tax on every step a country takes along the value chain. For instance, coffee that has been neither roasted nor decaffeinated enters the EU duty-free; decaffeinated and roasted, it incurs a tariff of 7.5%. Under the latest draft, the duty would be cut by half. 对开发中国家重要的是，关税级距（即加工过後的商品比为加工过的商品徵收更多的 关税）会按比例降低。关税级距是每个国家都随价值链采取的方案。例如，没有烘焙过 或去咖啡因的咖啡豆进入欧盟是无关税的；一旦去咖啡因和烘焙过，咖啡豆就会被 课徵7.5％的关税。依据最新的草案，这个关税会减半。 What does all this amount to? The WTO’s staff reckon that consumers and firms will pay around $125 billion less in tariffs if a deal is struck. Yvan Decreux and Lionel Fontagné, of CEPII, a French economic research institute, have tried to measure the effect on global growth. They estimate that the world economy would eventually be $43 billion a year better off. Throw in some liberalisation of services too, and the sum rises by $30 billion. 这些总得来说代表什麽？WTO的干部认为，这份协议能够让消费者和事务所少花 1250亿美元的关税费用。法国经济研究机构CEPII的YVAN DECREUX和LIONEL FONTAGNE 曾经试图衡量世界性成长的影响。他们预估，世界经济会增值430亿美元。加点自由化 的服务，增值的总值会再增加300亿美元。 Set against the scale of the world economy, these are not vast gains—around 0.1% of global GDP. But they are gains nonetheless, and they are probably an understatement: no one knows the value of the likely scale economies, productivity gains and extra variety that freer trade brings. Add to that the value of lowering bound tariffs and avoiding the institutional damage of failure, and the benefits do not look so puny after all. Will ministers grab them? Time to find out. 若用世界经济的规模来看这个成长，其实不是非常显着─只是全球GDP的0.1％。但 增值仍然是成长，且数目可能还是低估值：没有人知道更自由的贸易会带来什麽样子的 经济规模、多少生产力增长、以及何种的复杂度。若加上更低上限的关税，以及避免 一些会对经贸机构造成伤害的失败，或许利益看起来不会如此稀薄。各国部长会不会 好好把握？拭目以待。 新闻来源: http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id= 11745498 -- --

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