Business | Economy

Officials scramble for fresh look

World trade talks entered a second week yesterday - with ministers and their entourages scrambling to extend hotel bookings and find clean clothes.

  • Reuters
  • Published: 00:05 July 29, 2008
  • Gulf News

Geneva: World trade talks entered a second week yesterday - with ministers and their entourages scrambling to extend hotel bookings and find clean clothes.

In contrast to last Thursday, when the talks looked doomed and World Trade Organisation delegates sought early flights home, they were optimistic yesterday about getting a deal on trade liberalisation, but despairing about their laundry.

Initially set to run for just six days, crunch talks on the seven-year-old Doha trade round have run past Saturday's planned closing date. Delegates are showing the strain.

"I know it's Friday night so I'll be quick," said a weary US Trade Representative Susan Schwab as she addressed reporters on what was actually Sunday night, the seventh day of highly complex and politically charged negotiations.

Hundreds of delegates who had packed enough clean clothes for six days were either scrabbling to find laundry services open in Geneva over the weekend, or buying new shirts. Despite its reputation as a city with a luxury price tag, summer sales at Geneva's main department store meant business shirts were on offer for as little as 15 Swiss francs ($14.50).

"If we get a deal here on world trade, we can get that down to 13," quipped one European delegate whose five-star hotel charged more than the cost of a new shirt to wash and iron a used one.

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