This week trade ministers from around the world will gather to engage once again in the Doha Round of talks which, for all the initial hopes it represented, simply has not delivered. If global trade is to drive development and prosperity as strongly this century as it did in the last, we need to write a new chapter for the World Trade Organisation that reflects today’s economic realities. It is time for the world to free itself of the strictures of Doha.

While these talks have drifted, other efforts have raced ahead. Leading a group of 12 nations, the US recently concluded the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which raises standards and tackles emerging issues across nearly 40 per cent of the global economy. Meanwhile, the US and the EU are moving forward with the world’s largest bilateral agreement. Trade initiatives outside the WTO have become the norm, with hundreds of agreements signed by scores of countries since Doha was launched.

Experience, however, suggests that the WTO can deliver with pragmatic approaches. Ratification of the Trade Facilitation Agreement, which would benefit developing countries even more than rich ones by streamlining the flow of goods across borders, is within reach. An expansion of the Information Technology Agreement promises to eliminate hundreds of tariffs on $1tn of technology products, from MRI machines to semiconductors. Also encouraging is progress on an agreement that would liberalise trade in environmental goods.