Extend WTO Talks: Ex - Trade Chief - New York Times
November 23, 2005
Extend WTO Talks: Ex - Trade Chief
By REUTERS
Filed at 1:03 a.m. ET

HONG KONG (Reuters) - High tariffs in developing nations were causing the current round of world trade negotiations to lose focus and they needed to be extended by two or three years, a former chairman of global trade talks said.

Negotiations under the World Trade Organization (WTO) aim to lift millions out of poverty but have reached an impasse, largely because of disputes over how much rich nations are prepared to cut agricultural trade barriers.

But Alan Oxley, a former chairman of the WTO's predecessor, GATT, said in a paper released on Wednesday that the biggest problem was high trade tariffs in developing nations.

``Everyone talks about farm subsidies in the European Union and the United States, but the fact is that trade barriers are much higher in the developing world than in the rich countries,'' he said.

``The WTO talks ought to focus on the biggest problem first, namely the high tariffs in Africa, Brazil, China and India.''

Plans to draw up a framework for a global trade pact, which were due to proceed at a WTO ministerial meeting in Hong Kong next month, have been shelved until next year.

The current round of trade talks are due to be completed by early 2007 before U.S. presidential powers to negotiate trade deals without Congressional amendments expire in mid-2007.

``That suits those who want to diminish the importance of the WTO,'' Oxley said. ``Adding two or three years to the timetable of these negotiations would be normal in the processes of international trade liberalization. Such time is probably needed to create the settings for the right result.''

Many developing countries did not want to open their markets, he told a press conference. Yet World Bank estimates show removal of agricultural trade barriers in developing countries would generate US$110 billion in income for those countries alone, he said.

In contrast, cuts in trade barriers in the EU and United States would mostly benefit developed nations, he said.

Oxley, who is also a former Australian ambassador to GATT, is a co-founder of World Growth, a recently formed non-governmental organization based in Washington D.C.

Proposals unrelated to the WTO's core business should be taken off the table and WTO members who are not interested in trade liberalisation should be urged to retire from the negotiations or even from the WTO, he said.

``At this point, the most likely result from the Doha round is agreement which will reregulate controls on agriculture, produce little liberalization and set that as standard for similar results in industrial products and services,'' Oxley wrote in the paper entitled ``Make Trade Free: How The Doha Round Can Help Save Poverty.'

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CNN.com - Ministers may?delay WTO deadline - Nov 8, 2005Ministers may delay WTO deadline

GENEVA, Switzerland (Reuters) -- Top trade ministers admitted on Tuesday they could have to delay a mid-December deadline for a global deal, although the European Union warned such a move was risky and there was still time to overcome deep divisions.

Officials from key members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) said it might not be possible to achieve a full blueprint for a treaty before a December meeting in Hong Kong to give the world economy a boost and help alleviate poverty.

"We may need a Hong Kong II," Brazilian Trade Minister Celso Amorim said on Tuesday ahead of a meeting of trade ministers from around the world.

Amorim and his EU, U.S., Indian and Japanese counterparts met in London on Monday, but failed to break new ground, although they all described the discussions as positive.

EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said he was still pressing for a wide-ranging agreement when all the WTO's 148 members meet in Hong Kong between December 13 and 18.

"The moment you start reducing expectations, you risk introducing complacency," Mandelson said, heading for the Geneva meeting which is due to stretch into Wednesday. "My view is that we should keep up the pressure to narrow the differences."

After four years of talks, the gap between rich and poor nations, chiefly over agriculture, remains wide. All sides have warned the negotiations risk collapse if the deadlock remains.

Some ministers and senior trade officials feel the time has come to lower the target for Hong Kong to avoid a damaging failure like the conference in Cancun, Mexico, in 2003.

But they add that any delay could not lead to a weakening of the overall goals of the round -- slashing of rich nation farm subsidies and market-opening across the global economy -- or for a postponement of the round's final end-2006 deadline.

"I think that we may have to be content with a little less," Amorim said about Hong Kong. "But if that happens, it does not mean lowering the ambition of the round."

The EU has so far borne most of the criticism from other major trading nations for the impasse in the negotiations.

The United States, Australia and Brazil say Brussels must go further to open up Europe's protected farm market. The European Commission has revised its agricultural offer last month and says it now wants progress in industrial goods and services.

Top executives from leading companies including France's Vivendi Universal, U.S. software giant Microsoft and Finland's Nokia, urged ministers to "redouble their efforts to break out of the current impasse" in a letter in the Financial Times.

WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy had said he wanted Hong Kong to take the round two-thirds of the way towards conclusion, with all the major bargaining and trade-offs done.

"Expectations for Hong Kong at the given time would have to be tempered with the realities that exist," said India's Trade Minister Kamal Nath as he entered Tuesday's talks.

The trade talks must end before the U.S. president's "fast-track" authority to negotiate trade deals expires in 2007.

"This is all about working towards a consensus. It is not easy," said U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman.

Mandelson said Monday's talks created "a stronger platform" by moving beyond agriculture into industrial goods and services.

But Amorim, who said he was unhappy at the lack of movement on agriculture, said the EU was demanding too much in other areas and that he suspected it was a tactical move to prevent Brussels from having to concede more on farm goods.

Aid campaign group Oxfam warned that poor countries, intended as the winners in the WTO round, could lose as the EU could actually increase its trade-distorting subsidies to farmers and similar U.S. handouts could be cut by a lot less than the 60 percent offered by Washington.

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CNN.com - APEC set to tackle big agenda - Nov 14, 2005APEC set to tackle big agenda

SEOUL, South Korea (Reuters) -- Leaders of economies around the Pacific Rim gather this week for a meeting that has evolved from an economic talk-shop into a forum for problems as wide-ranging as bird flu, trade and terrorism.

The 21 leaders meeting Friday and Saturday in Busan, a port city about 420 kilometers (260 miles) southeast of South Korea's capital Seoul will feature two days of multilateral meetings but also the inevitable flurry of two-way talks.

The main issues on the agenda are averting a breakdown in the Doha round of the World Trade Organization (WTO) at talks due in mid-December and coming up with measures to work together if bird flu becomes a pandemic with the potential to kill millions.

Although not on the agenda, the status of international efforts to end the nuclear program of South Korea's neighbor to the north -- and what that means for the region's stability -- will overshadow all.

And many will closely watch how Japan's prime minister is received in the group, which includes many victims of Japan's aggression in World War Two. Junichiro Koizumi has angered many in the region by visits to a Tokyo war shrine that some say glorifies Japan's militaristic past.

U.S. President George W. Bush, coming to the meeting as part of an Asian trip that includes China, Mongolia and Japan, will want to keep his war on terror high on the agenda, analysts said.

Indeed, Bush was the one to put terrorism squarely on APEC's plate at the 2001 summit in Shanghai soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, altering the nature of the forum, perhaps forever.

"It (the meeting) has ... taken on a much more political slant in recent years since September 11. It has become a much more mature forum," said Ralph Cossa, head of the Hawaii-based Pacific Forum CSIS think-tank.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum opened officially at the weekend and will bring foreign ministers together in the middle of the week. But the highlight is the summit.

This being South Korea where demonstrating is an art form, the forum will not take place without its detractors.

As many as 20,000 protesters carrying placards saying "No Bush visit" joined a labor union-organized protest against the summit in Seoul on Sunday and South Korean rice farmers have pledged to hold rallies against freeing up farm trade.

Anti-globalization groups and activists plan to bring 100,000 people together in Busan on Friday, South Korean media reported.

Trade high on agenda
The meeting will be the last major global gathering ahead of next month's WTO talks in Hong Kong, where trading powers had hoped to agree on a blueprint for the so-called Doha free trade round that could be agreed by the end of 2006.

But progress towards a deal, which could inject new zest into world economic growth, has faltered due to Europe's resistance to liberalizing its heavily protected farm market and by developing nations' reluctance to cut industrial tarrifs.

APEC's economies account for 57 percent of world gross domestic product, 45.8 percent of world trade volume and 44.8 percent of the world's population, organizers say.

The leaders are expected to use that weight to call for progress towards a Doha deal, but some analysts say it may be too little too late, and point out the key to progress in the round rests with the European Union, which does not take part in APEC.

"Regional trade development has moved beyond APEC's orbit and it is time for APEC to stop pretending," APEC experts Allan Gyngell and Malcolm Cook wrote in a paper for Australia's Lowy Institute.

While APEC may have troubles in implementing its lofty trade goals, talking and coordinating are what it does best, which is essential in supporting public health policy on a global level where data must be shared openly and quickly, analysts said.

APEC officials said on Monday funding from the United States and Australia of about $2 million for projects to mitigate the economic impact of a pandemic would be announced at the summit.

"We need to consider how a pandemic could impede economic growth," Mario Ignacio Artaza, chairman of APEC's Budget and Management Committee, told reporters. "It's a priority issue for our leaders when they meet."

The leaders will pledge to share information on bird flu as well as data on outbreaks in migratory birds, according to a draft of the leaders' bird flu initiative obtained by Reuters.

Bush will have bilateral meetings with the leaders of the region's leading Muslim nations, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Malaysia is host to a new East Asian Summit scheduled for December that pointedly does not include the United States.

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CNN.com - APEC�ups trade pressure on Europe - Nov 18, 2005APEC ups trade pressure on Europe

BUSAN, South Korea (CNN) -- The leaders of 21 Asia-Pacific nations, including U.S. President George W. Bush, have begun their annual economic summit in South Korea with a call for the European Union to do more to break the impasse in talks on securing a global trade liberalization deal.

The leaders are set to endorse a statement agreed upon earlier by APEC ministers that aims to foster progress in World Trade Organization talks set for next month in Hong Kong.

It had been hoped an outline agreement would be reached at that meeting paving the way for a deal next year, but that is looking increasingly unlikely as differences persist on how much import tariffs should be lowered.

The EU has been singled out for blame for refusing to improve its offer of tariff cuts of 38 percent on average on agricultural goods, and for the number of products it wants exempted from the cuts.

South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon told a news conference that APEC would do its best to ensure the talks succeed, but that some leaders had said the EU must take a more "proactive and flexible" position.

"They are basically saying that now the ball is in Europe's court," he said.

The APEC draft statement acknowledged "considerable divergences" and said "a clear roadmap" must be established if the current round of talks is to succeed.

"We call for breaking the current impasse in agricultural negotiations, in particular in market access, which will unblock other key areas, including non-agricultural products and services," Reuters quoted the statement as saying. (Ministers adopt plan)

Speaking before the official opening of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, Australian Prime Minister John Howard was more direct.

"We are not going to get anywhere unless there is a significant matching of what the Americans have put on the table by the Europeans," he said.

Mexican President Vicente Fox later said France and Spain were the most hardline opponents of further tariff reductions.

Earlier this week, EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, himself having faced pressure from the French on yielding too much in the negotiations, said some within APEC seemed more interesting in "orchestrating the media" than in orchestrating a deal.

He said the 25-nation EU would stick to its current offer and called for negotiating focus to switch from agriculture to goods and services.

Bilateral moves
With the WTO talks deadlock seeming ever more unbreakable, many countries are turning to securing bilateral deals instead.

"Dealing one-on-one, it's much simpler," said Andre Lemay, spokesman for Canada's APEC delegation.

Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin meets Japanese counterpart Junichiro Koizumi on Saturday on the sidelines of the regional summit. They are expected to continue talks seen as a precursor to eventual free trade negotiations.

Earlier Friday, the presidents of Chile and Mexico defended bilateral and regional free trade agreements as good for their economies, but emphasized that the ultimate goal remains a strong WTO-based multilateral trading system.

China and Chile signed a free-trade agreement in Busan -- the first between the Asian giant and a Latin American country.

"It is essential that the leaders be able to put all of our political will and to instruct the negotiators that it is necessary to succeed," Chilean President Ricardo Lagos told a chief executives' gathering alongside the summit.

Fox added that a free trade agreement for the Americas remained on track and that leaders would "keep hammering" to reach a concensus.

"It's not easy to reach a trade agreement, more so when you need 34 countries to agree. But we're getting closer."

Varied agenda
While APEC is designed to be primarily a forum on trade and economic matters, other issues are increasingly fighting for attention on the regional bloc's agenda.

In their statement, the leaders will express strong concern about the threats of terrorism and bird flu, according to the draft seen by The Associated Press.

"Terrorism remains as a menacing threat to our world and we condemned terrorist acts that not only took thousands of lives but have also been aiming to destabilize the security of the region," the draft states.

One member nation, Indonesia, has been the subject of a number of bombings, and officials in another, Australia, said a terror strike was recently thwarted.

How to prevent the possible spread of bird flu into a human pandemic will also be a topic of discussion at the summit.

In a speech Friday morning, Australia's Howard promised a "significant initiative" to help prevent the spread of the virus, also urging countries not to let national pride get in the way of combating the threat.

"The last thing that any nations can afford to do ... is to in any way hide or cover up the onset of the size of an outbreak," he said.

According to the World Health Organization, at least 130 people in five APEC countries -- China, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia -- have been diagnosed with the H5N1 strain of the avian flu, and at least 67 have died.

Also up for discussion at the summit is how to deal with North Korea's nuclear program. While North Korea is not a member of the group, five APEC countries have been involved in talks aimed at persuading Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear ambitions -- Russia, China, Japan, South Korea and the United States.

The summit ends on Saturday evening.

CNN Correspondents Mike Chinoy, Dana Bash and Suzanne Malveaux contributed to this report.

Copyright 2005 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.

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