'Developing countries hold ground in WTO talks'

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GENEVA, July 7 (AFP): Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said yesterday that developing countries were largely on the same wavelength in deadlocked global trade talks.
Amorim, a leading figure in the Group of Twenty (G20) group of emerging and developing nations in the World Trade Organisation (WTO), said after meeting representatives of the broader G90 group of developing nations that any differences were "smaller than what we have in common."
"I felt that we're on the same wavelength in terms of unity and mobilisation," he told journalists, underlining a common desire to continue negotiations and ward off attempts to drive a wedge between poorer nations.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner Thursday criticised the role played by fast-growing emerging nations-mainly Brazil and India-saying they were too often taken to represent the interests of poor nations as a whole.
Kouchner said developing countries had an interest in striking the right balance in the negotiations, "which is not that of emerging countries."
A bid by the so-called "G4" group of influential trading nations-the European Union, the United States, Brazil and India-to relaunch the near six year-old talks on reducing barriers to commerce broke down last month. Amorim and Indian Commerce Minister Kamal Nath walked out of the meeting in Potsdam, Germany, blaming the EU and United States for failing to meet their demands on slashing state agriculture subsidies.
Brussels and Washington in turn claimed that the two emerging economies had refused to budge on reducing import tariffs on industrial goods in the Doha round, which is primarily aimed at boosting trade opportunities for developing nations.
The WTO's 150 members are at odds over the extent of new reductions in barriers to trade in agriculture, industrial goods and services, amid cross-cutting disagreements between rich and poor countries over cuts in import tariffs and farm subsidies.
Developing nations say rich nation subsidies artificially depress prices and prevent their farmers from competing on world markets.
Amorim said a deal was still possible by the end of the year.
"I don't see a technical impossibility, I think that there must be a political decision-and to make it a real development round, not a grab-as-much-as-you-can round," he said.
Chief negotiators in the Doha round are aiming to present key proposals in Geneva mid-July and to raise the pressure in September after countries have had time to mull over the new technical papers, trade sources said this week.