WTO members aim to finish Doha talks next year

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GENEVA, Dec 1 (Agencies): World Trade Organisation (WTO) members agreed yesterday to aim to finish the marathon Doha round of trade talks next year.
WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy-himself a keen marathon runner who is taking part in an annual Geneva long-distance race Saturday-told WTO ambassadors it was possible to complete the negotiations by the end of 2008.
The delegation heads agreed with a roadmap for the talks laid out by Lamy, but there were differences between countries over the treatment of talks on services such as telecoms and banking, trade officials said.
The next major stage in the talks launched six years ago is for the chairmen of the key agriculture and industry talks to issue revisions of the negotiating texts they produced in July.
These revised texts, reflecting the intense negotiations that have taken place over the past three months, would form the basis for outline agreements in farming and industry, known as modalities in WTO-speak, setting out the principles for cutting tariffs and subsidies, and the exceptions to those rules.
A third negotiating text was issued Friday, when Uruguay's WTO ambassador Guillermo Valles Galmes, who chairs talks on "rules"-dumping, subsidies and fisheries subsidies-produced his proposals.
These would strengthen the ability of the United States to impose duties on unfair imports by allowing zeroing, a controversial method of calculating anti-dumping margins for a group of similar products that does not take into account the price of some goods in the group if they are not being dumped.
Zeroing has been struck down by WTO panels, but Washington says it is allowed under WTO rules. The text by Valles enshrines zeroing in certain circumstances for the first time.
Lamy said the revised texts could now appear in late January or early February, with the modalities agreed a month later after further talks.
"If we agree on the modalities early next year, I believe we could be able to conclude the round before the end of 2008," he told the ambassadors according to a copy of his remarks.
New Zealand's WTO ambassador Crawford Falconer, who chairs the farm talks, has asked for more time for negotiators to work on technical issues such as consumption data of politically sensitive foods that will receive special tariff treatment.
Agriculture accounts for only a small proportion of world trade-in 2006 it made up only 8 per cent of total exports-but it is the key to the Doha round, launched to boost the world economy and help poor countries export their way out of poverty.
Meanwhile, India and the European Union, key players on opposite side of the WTO's Doha round of talks, yesterday said achieving an ambitious and balanced global trade deal remains their "foremost policy priority".
Addressing a joint press conference with Portugese Prime Minister Jose Socrates at the end of India-EU summit here, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the two sides have agreed to secure a successful completion of the Doha round.
A joint statement issued at the conclusion of eighth India-EU summit also emphasised on resolving the contentious and conflicting demands of market opening and development dimension of the multilateral negotiations launched in the Qatari capital in 2001.
"The successful and timely outcome of Doha development agenda multilateral trade negotiations remains the foremost trade policy priority of the two sides. Both sides are determined to work closely together to ensure the successful conclusion of the DDA negotiations through a comprehensive, balanced and ambitious outcome in all areas of negotiation," it said.