WTO powers still apart as deadline looms

Top trading powers say they are creeping closer to a WTO deal, but admit a battle against the clock to fulfill their promise to better the lives of the world's poorest citizens.

US Trade Representative Rob Portman, EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson and Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim concluded an informal two-day meeting here which they said had been 'candid' without yielding a breakthrough.

'We do not have yet the contours of a deal, but neither do we have an empty canvas,' Mandelson told a joint news conference after the meeting, which was joined by World Trade Organisation chief Pascal Lamy.

Each representative stuck to his guns in pressing for the kinds of concessions that they argue are needed to achieve the WTO's 'Doha Round' ambition of enriching the lives of millions through freer trade.

'I think we did inch closer. But we're not there yet, frankly,' Portman told AFP in an interview.

'There's still some space between us. I hope it can be bridged, I hope we can figure out a way over the next month to come together. But there's still some differences.'

Amorim, whose country is a leading player in the G20 bloc of developing countries, stressed that agriculture must come first and foremost in the Doha negotiations.

'We all know we have to have some movement. The question is how much and how,' the Brazilian minister said.

The WTO is racing against time to craft the basic framework of a global liberalisation accord by April 30, and then clinch an overall deal by the end of this year.

Adding to the pressure on the WTO to complete its four-year-old drive to tear down global trade barriers, the US Congress is set next year to regain the power to unpick any trade accord negotiated by Portman.

Brazil, backed by its G20 partners such as India and South Africa, insists the European Union must slash the generous trade protection afforded to its farmers.

Agricultural reform, they argue, would do more than anything else to ameliorate grinding poverty around the world.

But the EU, backed to an extent by the United States, retorts that developing nations must give something in return through opening their markets to more industrial imports and service industries.

Mandelson said that France, which is commonly seen as the staunchest defender of generous European subsidies for farmers, was not in fact opposed to farm reform but wanted it to take place in a 'prudent and managed' manner.

'Our job is to create a sustainable agricultural sector in Europe, not to put farmers out of business,' the EU trade chief said.

Portman drily commented on Mandelson's defence of the French position as 'interesting' and 'very diplomatic'. At French insistence, the EU has ruled out any serious agricultural reform until 2013.

Portman said the Rio participants had agreed to pursue intensive technical work at WTO headquarters in Geneva on how to reform domestic support for farmers and treatment of manufactured imports.

'If we can keep our ambition high ... there will be literally hundreds of billions of dollars in more global growth, and literally tens of millions of citizens in poorer countries will be able to be lifted out of poverty,' the US official said.

Following an inconclusive ministerial conference held in Hong Kong in December, the Rio meeting was the latest in a series of encounters that have grouped major WTO players from both the developed and developing worlds.

All three of the senior officials gathered in Rio stressed the talks were exploratory and the crunch decisions would have to be made by the 150 WTO members.

'Each one of us has to make concessions,' Amorim said.