Mike Moore's WTO term gets the thumbs up

World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks to kick-start a new round of trade negotiations have been successful.

New Zealand commentators say that is a major achievement for Director General Mike Moore.

Trade ministers from more than 140 countries sealed agreement early this morning to launch the new talks, aimed at lifting millions of people from poverty and boosting the world's tottering economy.

After six days of haggling at the WTO meetings in Doha, the capital of the Gulf state of Qatar, ministers agreed to begin "broad and balanced" negotiations next year on cutting farm subsidies and industrial tariffs and tackling a host of other barriers to trade.

A former New Zealand prime minister, Mr Moore took over as WTO director general in 1999, about three months before the organisation's last attempt to start a round.

That resulted in the "battle in Seattle", when negotiations collapsed amid disagreements among WTO members and sometimes violent street protests outside.

Former deputy prime minister of Thailand Supachai Panitchpakdi takes over from Mr Moore next September.

Robert Scollay, director of the Apec study centre at the University of Auckland, said today it was difficult to establish the exact role Mr Moore had played in the success of the Doha conference or generally during his term.

But Mr Moore's work to ensure the support and participation of developing countries was generally accepted, he said.

"Mike Moore's certainly worked very hard to bring the developing countries on board for the new round and to persuade the key players, like the United States and European Union, that they'd need to accommodate the developing countries.

"He put a lot of effort into building up confidence in those developing countries and bringing them to a point where they would accept a declaration like the one we got. Getting them on board was probably the most difficult part of the whole exercise."

A major issue Mr Moore had to overcome was the divisions evident at the time of his appointment.

His appointment came only after an agreement to split the position between himself and Dr Supachai.

"Clearly some of them (the members) supported Supachai and one of the things Mike Moore had to overcome was the perception he was the United States' man," Mr Scollay said.

"My perception is he's done that quite successfully."

The Doha meetings were a "horrendously difficult exercise".

"If it had collapsed you couldn't have blamed him, just as you can't give him all the credit for its success as the role of the secretariat that he heads is a facilitating role.

"They are there to carry out the wishes of the members, but it's the members who have to make the decisions."

- NZPA