LexisNexis(TM) Academic - Document
Copyright 2005 The Financial Times Limited
Financial Times (London, England)

April 20, 2005 Wednesday
London Edition 2

SECTION: ASIA-PACIFIC & INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY; Pg. 8

LENGTH: 425 words

HEADLINE: Farm trade talks suspended WTO:

BYLINE: By JEREMY GRANT and FRANCES WILLIAMS

DATELINE: GENEVA and CHICAGO

BODY:


The latest round of talks on liberalising agricultural trade in the World Trade Organisation ended last night without agreement on resolving a vital technical issue that threatens to stall the negotiations.

Hopes of a deal had risen after trade diplomats said a compromise had been hammered out at a meeting in Geneva of senior trade officials from 30 key countries. But differences subsequently re-emerged and the talks were suspended.

"We need a solution very quickly or we are in trouble," said Ujal Singh Bhatia, India's WTO ambassador.

Fears have grown in recent weeks that a delay in the farm talks over this issue could hold up progress in other areas of the Doha round, including industrial tariffs and services, and call into question a self-imposed July target for drawing up a draft blueprint for the final stage of negotiations.

The blueprint is due to be approved by trade ministers when they meet in Hong Kong in December, paving the way for completing the round in 2006.

WTO members have been deadlocked over how to convert all import duties into simple percentage-of-value figures that can be fed into a tariff-cutting formula for farm goods. Without a common way of expressing tariffs, countries cannot assess the impact on themselves or others of the various formulas so far put forward.

The European Union and the US, together with Switzerland, Norway and Bulgaria, have the most tariffs needing conversion. But a proposal agreed by the US and EU last week was rejected by the other three, which said it would push too many of their tariffs into higher brackets that would be subject to bigger cuts.

Also yesterday, a new international alliance of food producers, processors and users, including some big US fast-food outlets, launched a campaign in Geneva to push for lower farm trade barriers.

The Global Alliance for Liberalised Trade in Food and Agriculture issued a declaration calling for deep tariff cuts, quota expansion, rapid elimination of export subsidies and big reductions in domestic farm supports. Its members include the Food Trade Alliance, a group of US fast-food companies and restaurant chains formed in January in a sign that such companies are increasingly concerned about the impact of global trade issues on commodity prices.

Yum! Brands, the Kentucky-based operator of KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut restaurants, have taken the lead in forming the US alliance. Paul Nathanson, an alliance spokesman, said: "We are bringing together a group of people who have not participated actively in these kinds of trade debates."

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