TWN Report from Cancun, 9 Sept 2003 (By Martin Khor)
'Ours is a good cause, we have the support of our population and a large proportion of world opinion, this is a chance for the WTO to show it cares for the poor.' - AMORIN
Guy de Jonquieres, Frances Williams and John Authers in Cancun
Breaking the two-year deadlock over farm trade reform is widely seen as the linchpin of the five-day meeting and an acid test of rich countries' pledges to make the Doha talks a 'development' round.
All major press conferences organized on 9th September a day before the Cancun Ministerial Conference (September 10-14, 2003) clearly show that Agriculture is going to make or break the Cancun Ministerial Conference of the WTO.
Strong domestic support and export subsidies in developed nations have placed tremendous curbs on the export of farm goods by developing nations which had been blocking progress on other fronts in the WTO.
John Authers in Cancun and Sara Silver in Mexico City
Mexican peasant leaders are planning a mass demonstration against free trade on Wednesday to mark the opening of the World Trade Organisation's ministerial meeting in the Caribbean resort of Cancun.
Since the 1980s, developing countries have signed numerous bilateral investment agreements, yet they receive less than one-third of the world's total foreign direct investment flows.
Last week, the Agriculture Committee met in the WTO to see if the current deadlock on all aspects of the agreement on agriculture (AoA) can be bridged.
