WTO negotiator seeks fresh input on industrial goods talks

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GENEVA, Oct 23 (AFP): The chief World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiator on the contentious topic of industrial goods yesterday urged member states to inject fresh life into stalled talks, trade sources said.
Don Stephenson, the chair of the negotiating group on non- agricultural market access (NAMA), plans an extensive series of meetings with members before issuing a revised 'modalities' text by mid-November, the sources said.
As yet, he has very little to go on in terms of input from the WTO's 151 members but he warned that failure to conclude the modalities by the year's end would mean failure for the entire Doha Development Agenda, the sources added.
Back in July, Stephenson, who is also Canada's ambassador to the WTO, issued draft proposals that called for a cut in in industrial tariffs charged by 27 developing nations to less than 23 percent.
The proposals were made in tandem with his counterpart in the agriculture negotiating group, New Zealand ambassador Crawford Falconer, who has called for heavy cuts in US agricultural subsidies.
Between them, the two ambassadors hope to resolve the long- standing impasse in WTO talks.
The Doha Round, which was launched in the Qatari capital in 2001, should have ended in 2004 with an agreement to cut barriers to trade in farm produce, industrial goods and services.
However, it has been dogged by long standing disputes between wealthy and developing nations, especially on protective barriers for agriculture, as well as between the European Union and the United States on the same issue.