Business | Economy
Global trade talks get a farm boost
A revised negotiating text on agriculture has brought World Trade Organisation (WTO) members closer to their goal of a deal by the end of the year to open up world trade, diplomats said on Friday.
- Reuters
- Published: 01:26 February 17, 2008
Geneva: A revised negotiating text on agriculture has brought World Trade Organisation (WTO) members closer to their goal of a deal by the end of the year to open up world trade, diplomats said on Friday.
But negotiations in other areas such as industry and the rules governing trade still face big obstacles, they said.
India's WTO ambassador Ujal Singh Bhatia said the new agriculture text was a first but good step towards clinching a deal.
"It does incorporate all opinions. It keeps everyone's views on the table," Bhatia told Reuters as negotiators took a break from reviewing the agriculture text, issued last week together with a revised draft for industrial goods.
Trade ministers want to conclude the long-running Doha round this year, before a new US administration takes office and is distracted by settling in, and to inject confidence into a world economy battered by financial crisis.
To do that they hope to meet in Geneva in March or April to agree the outlines of a deal.
The revised texts, summarising the past six months of talks in the Doha round launched in 2001, prepare the way for that meeting, at which ministers will make trade offs between farming and industry, and possibly other areas like services and rules.
Role of agriculture
The Doha round explicitly aims to promote development so agriculture's importance to poor countries makes it central.
At Friday's review, rich and poor countries expressed appreciation for the way the chairman of the agriculture talks, New Zealand's WTO ambassador Crawford Falconer, had created the basis for further progress in his revision.
But speaker after speaker signalled tough negotiations this week by calling for changes to the exemptions proposed for both developed and developing countries to shield sensitive products from the impact of lower tariffs or subsidies.
The Doha round is likely to involve a deal in which rich countries cut their farm tariffs and trade-distorting farm subsidies in return for developing countries opening up their markets for industrial goods and services. That would also give a fillip to South-South trade.
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