Trade officials have warned that global trade talks are close to breaking point, leaving the European Union with ten days to either resolve a bitter internal rift or convince partners in the WTO to tame their demands on farm import barriers.
The WTO Secretariat, on 24 October 2005, reported that in the period 1 January-30 June 2005, the number of initiations of new anti-dumping investigations and the number of new measures applied continued their previously-reported declining trends.
A meeting of world trade ministers to hammer out a new global pact is in jeopardy unless Europe offers big cuts to its farm tariffs, the United States warned on Monday, and the EU itself admitted talks were on a 'knife-edge.'
