(Reuters) - The chief of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Pascal Lamy, hailed on Monday the impending accession of small Pacific island state Vanuatu as a sign of confidence in the body at a time of turbulence.

Lamy, who said last week that the WTO's Doha round of negotiations on a new global trade pact was on the edge of failure after 10 years, was speaking after a working group approved terms for Vanuatu to join.

"Vanuatu's accession to the WTO is a sign of confidence in the organisation and the multilateral trading system at a time of turbulence for the trading round and the WTO," Lamy told a ceremony marking the end of the entry talks.

Russia and Algeria are the two main trade economies outside the WTO, although a session of Moscow's 18-year-old accession talks is due to start on May 31.

When formalities including ratification of the accession terms by Vanuatu's legislature have been completed, the archipelago will become the 154th member of the WTO, which sets the rules for global trade and oversees their implementation.

Vanuatu trade minister SelaMolisa told the ceremony the agreement negotiated with many WTO members in the special working group over the last decade and a half offered "a high quality package" for his nation's future trade relations.

The package, setting out terms for goods and services trade with other WTO countries, would provide "an impetus for modernisation, integration into the global economy and rapid growth", Molisa said.

Small countries generally see the WTO and its rules as providing a framework to trade their way out of poverty, allowing them to make development plans based on predictable income from abroad.

The Doha negotiations, launched at the end of 2001, were long described as a development round aimed at bringing poorer nations into the mainstream of world commerce.

But the round has missed several deadlines for completion, largely because of disagreements between and among major industrial powers such as the European Union and United States and advanced developing economies like India, Brazil and China.

Trade diplomats and analysts say they cannot see the round continuing much beyond 2011, and Lamy, a former EU trade commissioner, voiced similar views last week.

However, many also say the WTO has a major role to maintain in underpinning the framework for world trade as a whole.

May 2^nd, 2011

Source: Reuters

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