Hong Kong 13-18 Dec. 2005

The Sixth WTO Ministerial Conference  
Hong Kong, China, 13 to 18 December 2005.

Agency France-Presse, Zurich
The New Age
11-10-2005
 

With a make or break summit edging closer, key members of the World Trade Organisation gather in Zurich to try to solve the deadlock in talks aimed at cutting barriers to global commerce.

The daylong discussions mark yet another attempt to resolve differences and draft a treaty in time for the WTO’s conference in Hong Kong, now just two months away.

Much of the meeting is expected to focus on disagreements between the United States and European Union over concessions on customs duties and government aid to farmers.

It is also likely to consider how to satisfy the demands of developing countries, which are pressing rich nations to do more to open their markets to farm goods.

Freeing up the farm trade has proven a key stumbling block in talks among the 148 trading nations in the WTO-although talks on industrial goods and services, such as insurance and banking, are likewise far from a breakthrough.

Ahead of the meeting the US’ top trade official said Washington was proposing to slash its agricultural subsidies by 60 per cent by 2010, in what he called a bid to jumpstart the negotiations.

To jump-start our stalled negotiations, the US is prepared to move, and move aggressively, by supporting a 60 per cent cut in ‘amber box’ support-the most distorting type of subsidies-over the next five years,’ US trade representative

Rob Portman (news, bio, voting record) said in the online edition of the Financial Times.

This will require significant reforms to US farm programmes.’
But in a sign of the horsetrading ahead he said greater cuts must be required by the European Union and Japan, which he said have much larger agricultural subsidies.
All countries must also simultaneously deliver real market access,’ he pointed out.

Besides the United States and European Union, the other countries expected in Zurich are a cross section of the WTO’s membership: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Rwanda, South Africa, South Korea and Switzerland.
Last week, a senior US government official said the aim would be to ‘talk candidly.’

The WTO’s members set the rules for international trade.
They are still hoping that the Hong Kong summit will cap four rollercoaster years of negotiations and produce at least the bare bones of a treaty reducing customs duties, subsidies and other barriers to commerce.
The aim is also to use trade to lift developing countries out of poverty.

Hong Kong is meant to be the final milestone in the Doha Round of trade talks, launched in Qatar in 2001.
The round was originally billed to finish in 2004, but members shifted the target to 2006, largely because of a bust up between rich and poor countries at the WTO’s 2003 summit in Cancun, Mexico.

That conference collapsed as they battled over the concessions required in the farm and services trades. Members are desperate to avoid a replay in Hong Kong.
WTO chief Pascal Lamy is scheduled Thursday to give a read out on preparations for the summit.
Crawford Falconer, chairman of the WTO’s formal farm talks, last week said he had been unable to narrow members’ differences.

Without progress in Zurich or elsewhere, it is hard to say whether there is much point organising further formal sessions, he told a WTO meeting.
In the EU-US stand off, each side wants the other to make more concessions.

Washington is seeking cuts in EU farm import duties, while Brussels wants the US to reduce support for its farmers.
Developing countries and campaigners say such help for EU and US farmers enables them to sell their produce at artificially low prices, meaning unfair competition for poor producers.