Pessimism on Doha Round progress is "misplaced": Mandelson

0 Comments | AFP, May, 2005

PARIS (AFP) — EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson sought to galvanize foundering multilateral trade talks, insisting the prevailing pessimism was "misplaced" and calling for political commitment to open markets from industrialized and middle-income countries.

His comments came in a column appearing in the Financial Times newspaper a day before some 30 trade ministers were to convene here in yet another bid to preserve the Doha negotiations aimed at reducing global trade barriers.

Mandelson acknowledged the "growing scepticism about the outlook for further liberalising international trade."

"I understand the anxiety but I think the pessimism in misplaced. There is still time -- just -- to deliver on the original development-through-trade agenda envisaged in...