With the World Trade Organization meeting under way, the United States is trying to convince West African governments to pressure the European Union into making a bigger offer to cut agricultural tariffs and subsidies.
Though there are problems in all the critical areas of agriculture, viz., market access, domestic subsidy and export subsidy, the key questions are in the domestic subsidy of the developed countries
The charity Christian Aid has cited leaked documents to say that the European Union (EU) will push developing nations to privatise services such as water, healthcare and banking at the trade ministers meeting in Hong Kong this week.
Facilitator for agriculture at this week’s WTO’s sixth ministerial conference in Hong Kong, Mukhisa Kituyi, said in Geneva on Saturday he intends to conduct discussions in all three pillars of Doha Development Agenda farm negotiations adding that he wants to explore with trade ministers where they can arrive at figures to be plugged into the liberalization formulas
US Trade Representative Rob Portman told reporters he is optimistic that members can make 'incremental' progress on some substantial issues as well as arrive at a plan for least developed countries
The Hong Kong government is mustering all its propaganda skills to create a climate of fear as the meeting approaches, to justify cracking down on any dissent and keep the substantive issues off the front pages
Around 3,000 protesters waving signs reading 'Junk the WTO' and 'Life is not for sale' marched in a carnival atmosphere in the shade of skyscrapers in one of the world's main financial centres.
