Lamy sets end-June target for key WTO trade deal
29 May, 2006
Richard Waddington
Failure to reach an accord in agriculture and manufacturing, seen as the two most difficult areas of the WTO's Doha round of free trade negotiations, would leave the 149-state body with insufficient time to conclude the rest of its work.
"The timetable is a matter of days, not weeks. We need modalities in June," Lamy said, citing the WTO term for a draft deal.
"If we let modalities drift into July, there will not be time," a senior trade official quoted him as telling a closed-door meeting of WTO ambassadors.
The WTO round, launched in late 2001, aims to boost global economic growth and lift millions out of poverty. But it has been dogged from the start by deep differences between rich and poor countries, particularly over agriculture.
Trade ambassadors agreed at the meeting that the chairmen of the farm and industrial goods negotiating committees should aim to present texts to negotiators by the week of June 19.
Ministers would then be invited to Geneva from June 26 for a final push for draft deals in these two crucial areas.
OPEN A GATEWAY
"The idea is to agree as much as we can on the framework (of a deal) and leave the actual numbers for ministers," the senior trade official said. "It is tight, but it can be reached to open a gateway to (concluding) the round," he added.
Ministerial turnout was expected to be along the lines of July 2004 when some 40 came to Geneva in a successful bid to put the round back on track after a WTO conference in Cancun, Mexico, collapsed in disarray in September 2003.
But positions remain far apart. The European Union (EU) and the United States are under pressure to concede more in agriculture, while rich nations want Brazil and India to offer more access to their markets for manufactured goods.
Subsidies were top of the agenda as negotiators began a further week of talks on farm issues. Some simulations show that offers of cuts by both the EU and the United States could leave actual spending little changed.
Washington says it could do more, but only if Brussels is willing to make far deeper cuts to farm import tariffs. Big EU food producers such as France have rejected more concessions.
But leading developing countries seem unwilling to back the tough U.S. line on tariffs, diplomats say.
Brazil does not want to press the EU too hard because its main trade ally, India, fears this could lead to pressure on developing countries to open their farm markets more.
"There seems to be an implicit alliance between India and the EU to sit back and do nothing," said one diplomat from a leading farm goods' exporting country.
A June deal for farm and industrial goods would give WTO states a month to wrap up talks on a host of other issues, from services to special help for poorer states.
The deadlines are dictated by the several months of detailed negotiations that will be needed between agreement on a full blueprint and the signing of a free trade treaty.
The treaty must be ready by the end of 2006 before the expiry next year of U.S. presidential powers to negotiate free trade deals, which Congress is not expected to renew.