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World trade talks show little progress

CANCUN, Mexico: World trade talks near the half-way stage on Friday with rich and poor nations expected to be presented with a first attempt at compromise although they remain divided over the core issue of how to slash billions of dollars of subsidies to Western farmers.

The meeting of World Trade Organization (WTO) ministers aims to wrap up an accord by Sunday to revive talks on a new trade deal, which the World Bank says could lift millions of people out of poverty and boost the flagging global economy. But negotiations have got no further than a standoff between newly assertive developing countries and the European Union and the United States over agricultural commerce.

“Those who subsidize must make a greater effort to level the playing field in international trade and generate opportunities for all,” said Argentine chief negotiator Martin Redrado.

His country is part of a new coalition of 21 developing nations, including powerhouses Brazil and India, which are demanding the EU and United States make more concessions on farm trade in return for agreeing to open their own markets. A deal on agriculture is central to the success of the meeting as developing nations blame the $300 billion in subsidies doled out each year to EU and US farmers as the reason their own farmers are blocked from world markets.

They also want the EU and United States to bring down barriers to food imports. Negotiators met late on Thursday for talks on how to bridge the gap on the farm issue. WTO spokesman Keith Rockwell said delegations were “playing their poker cards close to their chest” but they will hear proposals from a WTO-appointed mediator for a very preliminary compromise on Friday.

The farm talks are the toughest part of the negotiations, but other key issues also divide the 146-member WTO. The EU is pushing hard for guidelines on foreign investment and competition to be grafted into world trade rules, but it has found virtually no allies among the developing nations. —Reuters

APP adds: Developed countries to be sensitive to the requirement of developing countries particularly in the agriculture sector and agree on a frame-work that would remove distortions in agricultural trade, said Humayun Akhtar Khan, Pakistani commerce minister, during a meeting held on the sidelines of 5th WTO ministerial meeting. The minister emphasized the need for the WTO to evolve an acceptable framework for liberalising agricultural trade in a way that developing countries like Pakistan should be able to derive the maximum benefit from it. This was particularly important for Pakistan, since the majority of Pakistani population relied heavily on the agriculture sector, he added.

“If we want to achieve the millennium development goals, we have to translate rhetoric into reality and recommit ourselves toward a development agenda we agreed at Doha Round,” he said.

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