| Thai Food News |
2008-07-20 |
U.S., EU optimistic on trade talks despite banana row
GENEVA, July 17 (Reuters) - The top U.S. and EU trade officials expressed cautious optimism on Thursday about next week's make-or-break talks to secure an outline trade deal.
But a simmering row about bananas -- the subject of one of the most intractable trade disputes -- threatens to derail the talks, called to reach a breakthrough in the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) long-running Doha round.
"I think it is doable next week ... but it isn't just up to the United States," U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab told reporters. "The good time to close a trade deal is when there is enough on the table."
On Wednesday Schwab had said the United States was ready to make "enormous" cuts in its farm subsidies and urged emerging powers India, Brazil and China to do their bit for a deal.
Indian Trade Minister Kamal Nath, arriving in Geneva for consultations ahead of the meeting, said Schwab's comments on cuts were "music to my ears", as rich-country subsidies had contributed to the current food crisis.
But he said he retained serious concerns about the talks, which had to create a fairer world trading system and address the needs of millions of subsistence farmers in India and other developing countries.
"So the need of the hour is investment in agriculture, a result which leads to greater investment in agriculture in developing countries, which leads to protecting the interests of... subsistence farmers," he said.
EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson also voiced optimism.
"I think the chances for a breakthrough are improving but that breakthrough is not yet in the bag," he told reporters.
Next week's talks among ministers from around 30 countries are billed as the last chance to push the talks forward before a change in the U.S. administration next year, which could see them put on hold or frozen for years.
The talks were launched in the Qatari capital in late 2001 to boost world trade and help developing countries export their way out of poverty. But they have missed repeated deadlines since then amid bickering between rich and poor countries and exporters and importers.
SYMBOLIC
Many trade experts now see the significance of a deal as going well beyond trade.
"The Doha round negotiation is really symbolic. I hope it will be concluded positively because then for the other issues we can expect some cooperation and solidarity," said Guy Sebban, secretary-general of the International Chamber of Commerce.
A Doha deal would bode well for international efforts to tackle the financial crisis, surging energy and food prices and climate change, he told Reuters.
But before a deal can be struck countries need to shift entrenched positions and show a willingness to negotiate.
Rich countries continue to argue that developing countries are not doing enough to make the deal a success. Developing countries complain that they are being asked to make bigger cuts in tariffs than rich ones, putting their subsistence farmers and fledgling industries at risk.
The G-33 group of developing countries said on Thursday that key elements of the latest farm proposals on special treatment for developing countries remained unacceptable.
"The group does not view it as a fair, balanced and workable basis which would eventually create a constructive negotiation for success," the bloc said in a statement.
One of the main remaining difficulties in the farm talks is the conflict between demands to speed up tariff cuts on exported tropical products from Latin America and calls for continued preferential access to European markets for less developed growers in African, Caribbean and Pacific countries.
Here the trickiest question revolves around bananas, with Latin American countries and former European colonies sparring over the EU's banana import tariffs.
WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy has tried to broker a settlement to stop the banana row derailing next week's talks, and is likely to hold further talks on Friday.
"He is worried and rightly so, which is why he's invested a lot of time trying to fix the problem," said a senior diplomat from an EU country.
Ecuador, the world's top banana exporter, said the WTO proposals, involving cuts in EU banana import duties, were not enough but there was still a chance to reach a deal before next week's talks.
http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnL17852504.html
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