GENEVA, July 17: The WTO launched a crucial bid to break the deadlock in the Doha Round of global trade talks on Tuesday with new proposals that advocate sharp cuts in US farm support and in developing country industrial import duties.
The World Trade Organisation's chief agriculture negotiator made new suggestions that would involve cuts in US agricultural support to below $16.2bn a year, compared with a ceiling of $19 billion allowed now, officials said.
Meanwhile, his counterpart leading talks on “non-agricultural market access,” proposed reductions in industrial tariffs charged by 27 developing nations to less than 23 per cent.
The proposals in two of the three key pillars of the Doha Development Round were part of broader efforts to overcome nearly six years of failure in the Doha trade liberalisation talks.
The propositions will form the backbone of further talks over the coming weeks to broker a compromise that must be approved unanimously by the 150 WTO members -- preferably before the talks are hampered by fallout from the 2008 US Presidential election campaign.
Chief negotiators have said they intend to raise the pressure for a compromise deal in September, after countries have had time to mull over the new technical papers during a summer break.
WTO Director General Pascal Lamy called the proposals a “fair and reasonable basis” for reaching an “ambitious” agreement.
“Members will not be fully satisfied with the texts. But what separates members today is smaller than what unites them,” Lamy said.
The United States is preparing a “comprehensive” response to WTO farm and industrial proposals made in an effort to break a deadlock on global trade talks, a US official said.
“Both of the texts will demand close analysis as we develop a comprehensive US reaction,” Gretchen Hamel, spokeswoman at the USTR said.
The WTO's 150 members are at odds over the extent of new reductions in barriers to trade in agriculture, industrial goods and services.—AFP
