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WTO ministers meet in Tokyo to discuss farm trade, cheap drugs

TOKYO: Trade and agriculture ministers representing 22 World Trade Organization (WTO) member countries and regions arrived in Tokyo Friday for the start of a three-day meeting aimed at narrowing differences over trade in agricultural products and access to cheap drugs for poor countries.

At talks in the Qatari capital Doha in November 2001, negotiators were mandated to complete the wide-ranging trade talks by end of 2004, but they have suffered numerous setbacks through failed deals and missed deadlines.

The next looming deadline is for WTO members to agree the framework for negotiating rules on farm trade by March 31, ahead of a full meeting of 145 WTO members in the Mexican resort of Cancun in September.

“Discussions on market access issues, particularly for agriculture, services and industrial products, will be a key focus of the meeting, as important decisions on the negotiating framework have to be made in the first half of the year,” Australian Trade Minister Mark Vaile said in a statement before flying to Tokyo.

The WTO tabled its draft framework for reforming trade in agricultural products on Wednesday, although the full text has not yet been made public.

The document, drawn up by the chairman of the WTO’s agriculture negotiations, the Hong Kong ambassador Stuart Harbinson, calls for swinging cuts in both export subsidies and import tariffs, according to trade sources and a summary issued by the Japanese farm ministry.

Agriculture is one of the thorniest issues at the WTO, often pitting the EU and Japan, which heavily subsidise farmers, against the United States and the Cairns Group of 17 major farm exporting nations which favour easier market access.

But the Harbinson plan appears to have done little to bridge the divide so far.

Japan on Thursday rejected the proposed tariff cuts, which threaten its uncompetitive rice farmers as “biased” in favour of exporting countries, while the US described the plan for developed countries to slash export subsidies as “problematic.”

The EU blasted the draft proposal as “unbalanced,” in its approach to subsidies and claimed it failed to take into account non-trade concerns, while Australia’s Vaile said the proposals “disappointingly fall short of achieving a genuine outcome.”

The other high-profile sticking point is the WTO members’ failure in December to reach a deal to permit poor countries to sidestep patents and import generic pharmaceutical drugs to fight public health scourges.

The US is concerned any new regime agreed by the WTO should not cover non-infectious diseases, such as obesity or asthma, which prompted them to reject a draft text and block consensus at the end of last year.

Both the EU and Japan have presented proposals to break the deadlock. Other topics on the agenda include trade in non-agricultural goods and services, investment rules, transparency in government procurement, and granting special treatment to developing countries to help them take a more active role in the WTO negotiations.

The talks, which will be chaired by Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi, get underway around 8:00 pm (1100 GMT), with a working dinner after a reception for participants and a group photograph. The venue is Tokyo’s Imperial Hotel, across the road from a park where around 5,000 people are expected to take part in a protest rally Saturday organised by Japanese agricultural organisations.

No formal communique is due to be issued at the end of the meeting, but key players, including Japan, the European Union, and Australia will set out their positions at press conferences. —AFP

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