Home
News
Disappointment at failure of WTO talks
International negotiators of 153 countries involved have not managed to
reach an agreement in the current round of World Trade Organization (WTO) talks,
held in Geneva, Switzerland.
Discussions were suspended yesterday evening as it
became clear that these discussions in the Doha round, already started back in
2001 and aimed at liberalising global trade, would fail. Ministers had struggled
for more than a week to reach a consensus on a trade pact.
Countries
involved were not able to bridge the gaps to create a more open and free world
trade.
Agricultural affairs were at the heart of the discussions.
Especially emerging markets like India, Brazil and China were hoping the United
States and the EU would lower their subsidies for own agriculture production and
lower tariff walls - offering however new opportunities and
challenges.
Import rules
The negotiations
failed because the United States could not agree with the emerging bigger Asian
countries on farm import rules, the BBC reported yesterday. These would allow
countries to protect poor farmers by imposing a tariff on certain goods in the
event of a drop in prices or a surge in imports.
India, China and the US
could not agree on the tariff threshold for such an event.
Washington
said that the 'safeguard clause' protecting developing nations from unrestricted
imports had been set too low.
Countries like Paraguay and Uruguay said
that the proposals on the table would allow some major developing economies to
close off their markets to other developing world agricultural exporters, like
them - interrupting normal trade flows.
Meat
imports
They mentioned Korean growth for imports of fresh bovine meat
(73%), while Indian soybean oil imports are growing at 168% per year. These
'normal' trade flows would easily fit the criteria for a return to high
tariffs.
China said the collapse of the talks was a serious setback for
the world economy, while the EU described it as 'heartbreaking'.
The WTO
chief, Pascal Lamy, said he would not abandon his efforts to find an agreement.
Related news item:
• WTO talks aiming for agricultural solutions (23 July 2008)
Related web sites:
• World Trade Organization (WTO)
•
BBC
Subscribe here to the Pig Progress
newsletter
Editor PigProgress
To comment, login here
Or register to be able to comment.