G20 developing nations seek push in WTO talks: Brazil
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GENEVA, Oct 31, 2007 (AFP) - The G20 group of developing economies in the WTO will meet here next month in a final attempt to drive global trade talks ahead, Brazil’s Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said Wednesday.
“It’s probably one of the last chances for our collective voices to be not only heard but listened to,” Amorim told reporters. The meeting is being scheduled for November 15, he said.
Brazil is a leading member of the G20, which brings together many of the poor nations and emerging economies in the 151 member World Trade Organisation, especially those which could benefit from more farm exports.
The six year-old Doha round of talks on cutting trade barriers to agriculture, industrial goods and services is still deadlocked despite a recent revival in the negotiations.
The chief negotiators are expected to come up with a revised compromise proposal in mid-November, based on talks since the middle of the year.
Developing and emerging nations are seeking cuts in rich country subsidies and in import tariffs for agricultural produce, while industralised nations want better access to industrial markets in poorer economies in return.
Amorim said Wednesday that the concessions outlined in the current proposals under discussion for industrial goods — known as Non Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) — were greater than those demanded in agriculture.
“We want clarity on agriculture,” said Amorim.
“We are offering more in NAMA than what the rich countries are offering,” he added.
Amorim said developing nations feared the European Union and the United States had forged a tacit “mutual accommodation” in the talks at the expense of developing nations, despite Brussels and Washington’s own disagreements on farm subsidies and import tariffs.
Filed by Amadeus Domaradzki under Multilateral Trade