FOR the past week, high-level ministers from around the world have been gathering in Geneva as discussions, offers and counter offers on global trade liberalisation step up.
The only remaining questions to be asked at the eleventh-hour talks on Wednesday are whether the 116 contracting parties to the Uruguay Round of talks under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) can agree on terms against a background of stagnant economic growth across the developed world - a state which tends to encourage protectionism - and how many of the thornier issues will spill over to be discussed in the future.
On the first question, the jury was out up until earlier last week. Then, reports from Geneva became cautiously more optimistic: the original 50:50 chance given of success has now slightly increased, ministers and observers say.
What the Uruguay Round attempts to do is slash tariff barriers to promote worldwide trade and to embrace trade in services within this system.
On the table are big concessions in agriculture, manufacturing and textiles.
Various reports say implementation of the Round will boost world trade by a minimum 20 per cent, or US$212 billion, including services. Less modestly, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) believes the gains from implementation of the Draft Final Act will be closer to that figure without services.
According to James Capel, the way to tell the biggest beneficiaries of this boom in trade is to look at economies with an above average export share in Gross Domestic Product (GDP).