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Want to succeed at talks? Eat bananas
WTO chief provides sustenance tips for economists and lawyers for upcoming high-stakes meeting.
- Reuters
- Published: 23:37 July 24, 2008
Geneva: The World Trade Organisation's marathon-running chief has urged his staff to eat bananas to sustain themselves through long negotiating sessions - in which tariffs on the fruit will be debated.
Pascal Lamy asked the WTO's roster of economists and lawyers to work "enthusiastically" and with "team spirit" during a high-stakes meeting of trade ministers that began on Monday. "We will be asked to work long hours, to do work on all sorts of potentially unexpected assignments that may crop up, but such is our fate!" the normally staid Frenchman wrote in an e-mail to staff. "What do I recommend during your long work hours in the next two weeks? Bread and bananas, or any other high energy diet at your disposal," he said in the e-mail sent out last week. About 30 trade ministers and 800 government officials are in Geneva seeking a long-sought deal on cuts to import tariffs and subsidies that skew trade in goods from cotton to cars.
Among the hot-button issues being discussed are the European Union's import duties on bananas which are higher on Latin American imports than those from other former European colonies. Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Colombia and Peru want those rules overhauled before accepting a new global trade pact. Bananas for sale in the WTO cafeteria carry stickers from Costa Rica.
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