Rising tension threat to trade talks

TRADE ministers from 142 countries gather today in Qatar to try to launch a new global trade liberalisation round amid concern a simmering row about the availability of patented drugs in developing countries could block progress.

Two years ago in Seattle, the last ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation collapsed after violent street demonstrations by opponents of globalisation and recriminations from poor countries who claimed that once again America and the European Union were ignoring their interests.

Now the fact bombs are falling on impoverished Islamic people in Afghanistan, only a few hundred miles to the north-east, will intensify diplomatic tensions and worries about security.

Since the terrorist attacks of 11 September, preparations for the meeting have been moving forward much more quickly than seemed likely earlier in the year. The leading industrial countries have concluded that another failure would not only seriously damage the WTO but also cast a pall over a slumping global economy.

The EU and US in particular have indicated they intend to press ahead independently in seeking bilateral trade deals, an implicit warning to poorer countries that if they do not come to a diplomatic accord in the city of Doha, the world's biggest trading partners will try to sidestep them.

As they gather for the final bargaining, one positive outcome seems certain - China looks set to be accepted formally as a member of the WTO. This move will speed the nation's integration into the global economy and put pressure on the Chinese government to undertake far-reaching economic reforms. It will also shift the balance of power in the WTO, led by director-general Mike Moore.

China is such a large and fast-growing trading nation that its accession will weaken the hitherto dominant position occupied by the US and Europe, as well as re-order the power structure among developing country members.

In the past few weeks, however, the dispute about the circumstances in which developing countries can avoid strict pharmaceutical patents in order to manufacture or import cheaper generic drugs has become heated.

Countries such as Brazil and India that want to boost their own pharmaceuticals firms are pressing for greater freedom to manufacture cheaper versions of drugs which have been developed in the US, Germany or Britain.

African countries have been angered by the way Canada and America threatened to undermine the profitability of German firm Bayer's patent for its drug combating anthrax while supporting companies such as GlaxoSmithKline in resisting pressure to permit the manufacture of cheaper versions of patented drugs for the treatment of HIV and AIDS.

Western drug companies argue that looser patent rules will undermine their profitability and, therefore, their ability to create new medicines. The issue is emotive, symptomatic of the tensions between rich and poor which threaten agreement on the Trade in Intellectual Property accord and which may hinder the summit.