Q: The Hong Kong ministerial meeting is just three months away and the talks are way behind schedule.  How are you responding to calls for a “new negotiating paradigm” to put the Doha round back on track?

A: Well, I take the situation as it is.  I’ve been here since September 1 and we have a ministerial meeting in December.  Within this three-month constraint I have to use as much of my capacities as I can to unblock the negotiating process.  My ability to influence the process is still an unknown.  In the past, some directors-general have been willing to take a lead and put things on the table, sometimes this has been accepted by members and sometimes not. So there is no tradition, no benchmark.  It obliges me to rely on my own sense of where the members are in the negotiations and my own diagnosis on how the process should be structured and addressed.