GENEVA, Dec 2: The United States on Monday formally presented to its WTO partners a plan to progressively eliminate global tariffs on industrial and consumer goods by 2015, insisting poor countries stood to benefit.

Industrial goods make up about 89 per cent of developing countries’ exports, Linnet Deily, the US ambassador to the Geneva-based World Trade Organization told a news conference here.

“Through the US proposal, developing countries would secure within five years bound duty-free market access for non-agricultural goods now entering developed country markets at tariff levels at or below five per cent,” she said.

“This accounts for more than three-quarters of imports to the United States, Europe and Japan,” she added.

The US plan would see the elimination of all non-agricultural tariffs by the 145 members of the WTO by 2015 in two steps.

The first stage includes countries eliminating all tariffs at or below 5 per cent by 2010.

Tariffs in highly traded industry sectors would also be eliminated as soon as possible, but not later than 2010, it says.

And all other tariffs would be reduced to less than 8 per cent by 2010.

Then, WTO members, under the second phase from 2010 until 2015, would bring remaining tariffs to zero through equal, annual cuts.

Trade representatives from the global trading body began two days of market access talks here Monday as part of the Doha Development trade negotiations scheduled to run until the end of 2004.

Speaking to reporters, Deily said the US proposal was “both bold and fair”.

“We are putting our own sensitive areas, textiles, apparel, footwear, glassware, on the table in an unprecedented manner,” she said.

She acknowledged that many developing countries’ priorities went beyond what she called these traditional sectors to a broader range of industrial products.

But access to developed country markets was only a part of the story, she said.

“Developing countries stand to gain significantly, not only through better access to developed country markets, but also from each other.

“Nearly half of developing country trade is with other developing countries — with 70 per cent of the duties collected being paid by other developing countries,” Deily said.

The US was mindful of concerns raised about the need to maintain revenues, and was ready to talk about special and differential treatment for poorer members to help meet their needs, she added.—AFP