Doha round will collapse if EU offer is final - NZ
The European Union last week proposed cutting its average agricultural tariffs by 46 percent to just over 12 percent in a bid to secure successful completion of the Doha Development Round of global trade talks next year. It has said its offer is final.
"If that literally is their final offer, that is the end of the Doha negotiations," Jim Sutton, New Zealand minister for agriculture and trade negotiations, told Reuters in an interview.
But Sutton said he believed the EU was posturing and would eventually be forced to offer further cuts.
Trade ministers from the EU, the United States, Brazil and India are due to meet next week to try and work out differences in farm trade proposals, which are seen as a major stumbling block to completing the Doha round.
World Trade Organisation members are due to meet in Hong Kong next month in a bid to hammer out a broad global pact to lower trade barriers and try to lift millions out of poverty.
But Sutton said if there was no breakthrough at next week's meeting, there was no point proceeding with the Hong Kong meeting, which brings together all 148 WTO members.
"Unless there is a real prospect of progress in Hong Kong I think the meeting should be cancelled or postponed," he said. "It's very difficult to get flexibility from a meeting of 148 participating parties because in practice each party only gets one chance to speak."