Archive - Jun 16, 2006

WTO members held a first discussion on Monday (12 June) on a paper suggesting modalities on agriculture market access issues that was issued by the chair of the WTO agriculture negotiations, Ambassador Crawford Falconer of New Zealand.

President George W. Bush said on Thursday that the Doha round of world trade talks had reached 'a critical moment' and that he would press for further progress when he meets European Union leaders in Austria next week.

Several developing countries have responded with anger and even outrage to the latest proposal in the WTO's non-agricultural market access (NAMA) negotiations by a group of developed countries that there be a difference of only five points in the two coefficients for developed and developing countries in the 'Swiss formula' for cutting tariffs.

An informal open-ended agriculture meeting at the WTO Thursday 1 June discussed the Chair's latest reference papers on Blue Box and Green Box subsidies where members appeared to show some flexibility on the technical details but failed to converge on the major points, according to trade officials.

An informal consultation held on 6 June at the WTO on the relationship between the TRIPS Agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) ended with positions among members remaining unchanged on the issue of disclosure of the source of origin of biological resources and associated traditional knowledge.