Brazil sees progress in Doha talks, EU cautious

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 6 (Agencies): Brazil believes considerable progress is possible toward clinching a global trade deal before the end of the year, while the EU wants increased access to developing countries, officials said yesterday.
"Today we are very close to a final accord. We lack only a little bit of political will to get to a final result. It depends on political attitudes," Brazil's Foreign Minister Celso Amorim told reporters at a foreign policy conference in Rio de Janeiro.
"I think it is possible that at the end of the year we will reach an accord on basic numbers, on the basic framework of World Trade Organisation (WTO) chief Pascal Lamy," he said.
The United States and the European Union have taken important steps toward opening markets and cutting subsidies, but "several obscure elements" remained, Amorim added.
India last week also said that negotiators were closer than ever before to reaching a deal.
The talks, which were launched six years ago to boost trade and help reduce poverty, floundered last month as negotiators disagreed over draft texts proposed by Lamy.
Developing countries, led by Brazil and India, have demanded better access to rich country markets for their agricultural goods, while the rich nations want the poorer countries to open up their markets to manufactured goods and services.
EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson warned Monday that mid-sized developing countries were offering too little market access for manufactured products.
"An attempt is being made to shift the goal posts further to the point where competitive, emerging economies ... will end up making next to no contribution to new trade flows in this Round," Mandelson told the European Parliament.
"That is simply not acceptable. Not just for the EU, but because this would negate any gains from South-South trade," Mandelson added, referring to trade between developing countries.
Brazil is one of the world's largest agriculture exporters and leader of developing countries in pushing rich nations for more market access.
Industry leaders have backed Brazil's tough stance while farmers want their government to grant more concessions and lock in EU and US farm offers already on the table.
New draft texts are expected soon at the WTO in Geneva that could bring countries closer on farm subsidies and tariffs, as well as opening manufactured goods markets to more trade.
Meanwhile, the top US commerce official said today that the world now had a rare opportunity to make headway in global trade talks, and urged rich and developing nations alike to work toward that goal.
"It's probably the single biggest idea we have ... to drive worldwide growth even more," Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said on a visit to Vietnam, where he has been meeting high-level officials.
"We believe that there are two important components. One is obviously the large developed economies, and the other one that has a very important role is the large developing economies," he said. "It's a once-in-a-generation opportunity."
The trade talks, held under the auspices of the WTO, have foundered largely on demands by developing countries for their farm products to get greater access to markets in the industrialised world.
The WTO's 150 members are at odds over the extent of new reductions in barriers to trade in agriculture, industrial goods and services.
Developing nations say agricultural subsidies in rich nations artificially depress prices and prevent their small farmers from competing on world markets.
In return for farm cuts, wealthy economies want deeper concessions from developing countries on access to industrial markets.
Meanwhile, WTO talks on industrial goods will be delayed by up to two weeks as parallel talks on agriculture remain mired in an impasse, trade sources said yesterday.
The WTO's chief negotiator on non-agricultural market access (NAMA) has decided to delay issuing a revised version of a set of compromise proposals after his agriculture counterpart said members remained stuck on how to reduce trade barriers, the sources said.
Don Stephenson, who is also Canada's ambassador to the global trade body, was due to issue a revised "modalities" text on November 15 but this will now be delayed by one or two weeks.
He said there is a need to narrow differences and clarify the options for the negotiations, the sources added.
Developing and emerging nations in the six-year-old Doha round of trade talks are seeking cuts in rich country subsidies and in import tariffs for agricultural produce.
Developed nations want better access to industrial markets in poorer economies in return.
The G20 group of developing economies in the WTO has scheduled a meeting on November 15 to help advance the Doha round, which also seeks to free up trade in services and industrial goods.