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Pressure builds on WTO nations to downgrade Hong Kong target

11-08-2005
Geneva (AFP)

Trading nations were headed for a crossroads, under pressure to lower their target for a crucial WTO conference in Hong Kong in December in the face of enduring differences on measures to slash barriers to international commerce.

Brazil's Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said he expected World Trade Organization chief Pascal Lamy to make an assessment later in the day of what member states could achieve at their December 13-18 ministerial conference, where they hope to approve the outlines of a wide-ranging trade accord.

WTO ministers may need to hold a "Hong Kong 2" in the early months of next year, Amorim told journalists.

"But if that happens, it doesn't mean lowering the ambition" of the WTO's Doha Round talks, he noted.

Members of the 148-nation WTO regrouped on Tuesday at the organisation's Geneva base to discuss the outcome of a meeting in London Monday between Brazil, the European Union, India, Japan and the United States.

The London talks marked a renewed attempt to revive logjammed global trade negotiations. Participants said they had narrowed their differences but that gaps remained.

The five represent a broad cross section of trade interests and a deal among them is crucial, but it will have to have the backing of all members.

"This is all about working toward a consensus. It's not easy," US Trade Representative Rob Portman said. "It's about all of us making tradeoffs."

WTO members launched the Doha Round of multilateral trade liberalization talks 2001 with the aim of boosting living standards in developing countries. They originally intended to complete the round in 2004 but later set a 2006 target after failing to settle disputes.

India's Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath hinted on Monday that the goals for Hong Kong may have to be downgraded, leaving more to be done next year.

But EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said Tuesdau that he was "wary" of such suggestions, saying WTO members are "living on borrowed time" and must press ahead.

"The moment you start reducing expectations, you risk introducing complacency," Mandelson told journalists.

"We've had enough complacency during the last year, and my view is that we should keep up the pressure, keep up the pace and keep people working to narrow the differences between us," he said.

Much of the deadlock is in farm trade talks.

Developing countries, which accuse rich nations of using subsidies and tariffs to skew the market against them, have been suspicious of cuts offered by the United States and the EU, saying they lack real bite.

Mandelson said that parallel talks, particularly on industrial goods and trade in services such as banking, "have been held at the gate" by countries that have put too heavy an emphasis on agriculture.

In Monday's meeting, the EU tried to overcome resistance from India and Brazil to speed up negotiations on these issues.

The two nations, which head the G20 lobby of developing countries, want the farm controversy largely settled beforehand and Amorim had stern words for the EU on Tuesday.

"Sometimes I wonder if some of the objectives pursued by the EU are truthful or just a pretext not to move on agriculture," he said.

He also said he feared that rich countries are "putting the bar so high" for the poor in order to lay the blame for a possible failure.

Under the agreement that launched the Doha Round, as well as a subsequent interim deal, developing countries are meant to benefit from special treatment.

The heads of the WTO's different negotiating groups are currently trying to draft texts to be fed into an accord in Hong Kong.

But Iceland's trade ambassador Stefan Johannesson, who steers talks on industrial goods, warned: "I am not producing texts on elements on which I do not see convergence."

"You need to give me something to work on otherwise the process is doomed to fail," he told a WTO meeting.

Analyst Sergio Marchi, Canada's former trade ambassador who also led the WTO's ruling General Council in the run up to the ill-fated Cancun conference in 2003, said members would be "shortsighted" not to start preparing a "Plan B" for Hong Kong.

The Cancun conference and another in Seattle in 1999 collapsed because of persistent discord between rich and poor.

AFP

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