Bali Agreement: Who Wins and Who Will Bear the Costs?

At the beginning of December 2013 the member countries of the WTO reached a new world trade agreement. Gabriel Felbermayr, Ifo Institute and University of Munich, sees a need to adapt the WTO to the new difficult situation of the world economy, since groups of countries bundled together in regional agreements will increasingly become central players in world trade. For Wilhelm Kohler, University of Tübingen, the result has potential, but with "Trade Facilitation" the WTO is entering territory where its approach to trade liberalisation is losing significance. Volker Treier, Deutscher Industrie- und Handelskammertag, sees the agreement as a victory for the economy. In his view, nobody stands to lose from the outcome of Bali. According to Heribert Dieter, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, Berlin, the Bali agreement is an important step, but the conflict between multilateral order and the competing preferential agreement has not yet been overcome. Moreover, Christoph Herrmann, University of Passau, maintains that the Bali package is more of a mixture of small solutions to individual problems than a major breakthrough for the Doha Round. According to the calculations of Cosimo Beverelli, Simon Neumüller and Robert Teh, WTO, the successful implementation of the agreement could lead to an increase in trade and to an improvement in prosperity. Richard Senti, ETH Zurich, describes the effective negotiation successes of the WTO ministerial conferences as "modest", but the standstill phase is nevertheless over and the sense of a new beginning is in the air. For Matthias Lücke, Institut für Weltwirtschaft Kiel the Bali decisions are neither cause for euphoria nor for resignation with regard to the WTO. However, progress with breaking down economically important trade barriers can primarily be expected via bilateral agreements. Peter-Tobias Stoll, University of Göttingen, points out that the topics dealt with in Bali only represent the tip of the iceberg in terms of the conflicts in the Doha round, and that further efforts are therefore necessary to fully conclude the Doha Round.