The last time the multilateral trade talks made headlines was when the Ministers met at Geneva in July 2008 and famously differed on the issue of special safeguard mechanisms in the modalities for the negotiations in agriculture. Since then, the talks have received scant attention at international economic meets. The urgency of concluding the talks has also progressively diminished. At Pittsburgh, the G20 Summit had reaffirmed the leaders’ resolve to ‘seek an ambitious and balanced conclusion to the Doha Development Round in 2010’ and directed the ministers to take stock of the situation no later than early 2010 and seek progress on all the issues.
