The European Union has given a cautious welcome to fresh World Trade Organization efforts to break the deadlock in the Doha round of global trade talks. “The text offers what we see as a realistic zone.... it is certainly something we can live with,” EU trade spokesman Peter Power told journalists.
Power and EU farm affairs spokesman Michael Mann said the WTO call for cuts in agriculture tariffs and subsidies was a useful step forward. “Our first reaction is that the texts provide a basis for further work in the Doha round,” the two EU officials said.

But they warned that the 27-nation bloc still had “important concerns” over some issues. They declined to give further details, however. The latest proposal at the WTO to unblock global trade negotiations continues to offer too little and cost too much to developing countries to constitute the basis for a development deal, said international agency Oxfam.

The new WTO proposals call for steep cuts in trade-distorting US farm subsidies by setting a ceiling for such hand-outs at between USD 13 billion and USD 16.4 billion, down from the current limit of about USD 22 billion. This is above the USD 10 to 11 billion ceiling demanded by Brazil and India but below the USD 17 billion level informally floated by the US. Meanwhile, the draft industrial goods agreement tabled in Geneva said developing countries should put a ceiling of 19-23 percent on their tariffs, well below the 30 percent demanded by Brazil and India. This is the level, however, that European business groups say is necessary to improve access to emerging markets for their exporters.

The two proposals will be discussed by the WTO’s 150 members over the coming weeks.
Diplomats say, however, that negotiators will only convene for serious talks in autumn, giving up earlier plans to try and strike a compromise deal before August. WTO Director General Pascal Lamy has called the new blueprints a fair and reasonable basis for reaching an “ambitious” agreement. The WTO chief still wants a deal by the end of the year to avoid getting the negotiations entangled with the US presidential election campaign.

The negotiations, aimed at breaking down barriers to trade in agriculture, industrial products and services, were suspended last summer after the US and the EU failed to agree on measures to open up farm trade. Prospects for a deal further faded even further last month after four of the WTO’s largest trading powers - the US, EU, India and Brazil - failed to bridge differences at a meeting in Germany.

Mr. Neeraj Sharma

Neeraj Electronics

CEO, Neeraj Electronics
Jorhat, India

Free Member, Joined :06/09/2007
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