Ministerial trade talks reveal
Saturday, 7 June 2008
PARIS, June 6 (AFP): Global trade talks are still plagued by major disagreements but a deal remains possible between now and the end of June, a senior trade official said here Thursday.
"The discussions today were excellent but there are still considerable areas of disagreement," Australian Trade Minister Simon Crean told a press conference after an informal meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministers and officials.
"What emerged today is the agreement to direct officials to engage intensively in the coming weeks with the objective of working towards a ministerial meeting in Geneva around the end of the month."
He added that there had been a "strong view" that it would be possible to reach an agreement at such a ministerial session that would enable the Doha cycle of talks to be completed by the end of the year.
The head of the WTO, Pascal Lamy, pointed to two sticking points, trade in agricultural and industrial goods, that remained to be resolved, arguing that "we now have to cross a bridge" if an accord is to be achieved.
Last Thursday's session brought together representatives from 30 countries at the Australian Embassy following an annual meeting in Paris of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
"We all know we have little time but we all know that what remains to be done is achievable and limited compared to what we have already managed to build together through these last seven years of negotiations," Lamy said earlier in the day.
He said some headway had been made in talks on removing barriers to trade in agricultural and industrial products and appealed for a meeting of WTO ministers to draft a framework accord on the two questions.
Failure to reach agreement in the two areas has prevented an overall trade liberalisation deal envisaged in the Doha Development Round of talks, launched under the auspices of the WTO in the Qatari capital in late 2001.
"After innumerable meetings and several revised compromise papers on agriculture and industrial products, the negotiations are reaching a point where ministers could soon meet to agree on what we call the modalities in these two areas," he said.
He called for a gathering in Geneva of senior trade officials from WTO members in the next two weeks to prepare the ground for the ministerial session.
Lamy acknowledged that the industrial component of the talks posed a lingering problem.
Meanwhile, Reuters adds from Rome: A UN summit pledged to cut trade barriers and help poor farmers last Thursday to fight hunger threatening 1.0 billion people, but poverty campaigners said this was not enough to cap high world food prices.
The three-day Rome summit of 183 countries narrowly avoided embarrassing failure when Latin Americans protested at criticism of export curbs in the final declaration, which committed to "eliminating hunger and to securing food for all, today and tomorrow".
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) called the summit to discuss the impact of poor harvests, high fuel costs and rising demand, especially from fast-growing Asian countries, and there was a row over biofuels.
"We firmly resolve to use all means to alleviate the suffering caused by the current crisis, to stimulate food production and to increase investment in agriculture, to address obstacles to food access and to use the planet's resources...," the declaration said.
The Rome debate on the potential benefit to poor farmers of new global trade rules will feed into a push to conclude the Doha round of World Trade Organization talks.
But trade was a sticking point, with food exporter Argentina objecting to criticism in the declaration of export curbs like those it has imposed to shield consumers from food inflation.
US Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer said countries should understand that such restrictions cause food price inflation. Asian rice stockpiling is blamed for high rice prices that have even led to riots.
"We understand that countries want to protect their food supply and make sure that there's enough food for their own citizens but when there's a lock-out from the marketplace ... prices actually go up," Shafer told reporters in Rome.
Delegates said Rome had succeeded at the very least in putting soaring food prices at the top of the global agenda.
Schafer said it had rallied support for "expanded food production ... trade liberalisation and recognises the important role of investments in science and technology in ensuring food security in the long term".
Cuba and allies Venezuela and Argentina objected to the declaration which Cuban delegate Orlando Requeijo Gual said "neglects the vital needs of those who suffer from hunger".
He hit out at the "sinister strategies of using grain for fuel", a reference to biofuels, which critics say divert crops from food to cars.
The United States and Brazil defended using maize and sugar cane respectively to make ethanol to fuel cars, saying it is a minor factor in food price inflation. The declaration referred to both the "challenges and opportunities" of biofuels.
An international producers' group welcomed this, calling biofuels a sustainable solution to food and energy security.
AFP further adds from Rome: A UN summit vowed last Thursday to halve global hunger by 2015 and take "urgent" action over the global food crisis, but only after going into overtime at a fractious summit in Rome.
In a final declaration at the gathering-which saw some 6.5 billion dollars (euro 4.1 bln) pledged, but which exposed strains notably over biofuels-world leaders also agreed to boost food production in poor countries.
"We are convinced that the international community needs to take urgent and coordinated action to combat the negative impacts of soaring prices on the world's most vulnerable countries and populations," it said.
The summit was an "important first step" but not sufficient to tackle the global food crisis, British charity Oxfam said.
Oxfam Chief Executive Barbara Stocking said in a statement that while leaders of the world's richest countries had "acknowledged the importance of aid to agriculture", the global food crisis needed "a wide- ranging plan to resolve it."
"As the world's most powerful countries, they must provide more money to deal with the immediate impact of the current crisis but also tackle some of the contributing causes by ending compulsory biofuels targets and providing more long term aid for agriculture," she said.
"The current crisis illustrates starkly that what we need is not business as usual but deep reform of the international trading system," she said.
The declaration was criticised even before it was formally agreed, with Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini calling it "disappointing."
The text was "unfortunately very watered down with respect to the initial ambitions," he said, cited by the ANSA news agency.
Reaffirming a UN goal despite the current crisis-in which soaring prices have sparked famine and food riots around the world-the summit vowed to cut "by half the number of undernourished people by no later than 2015."
"There is ... an urgent need to help developing countries and countries in transition expand agriculture and food production and to increase investment (from) both public and private sources," the statement added.
The declaration was finalised only after wrangling went down to the wire at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) headquarters in Rome, with biofuels and trade barriers among the most contentious points.
Speaking after the 11th-hour accord, FAO chief Jacques Diouf said some 6.5 billion dollars had been pledged at the summit.
Major pledges came from the Islamic Development Bank (1.5 billion dollars), France (1.5 billion dollars), the World Bank (1.2 billion) and the African Development Bank (1.0 billion), Diouf said.
"Our conference was not a donor conference, but we were pleasantly surprised to receive extremely generous pledges," Diouf said.
"The discussions today were excellent but there are still considerable areas of disagreement," Australian Trade Minister Simon Crean told a press conference after an informal meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministers and officials.
"What emerged today is the agreement to direct officials to engage intensively in the coming weeks with the objective of working towards a ministerial meeting in Geneva around the end of the month."
He added that there had been a "strong view" that it would be possible to reach an agreement at such a ministerial session that would enable the Doha cycle of talks to be completed by the end of the year.
The head of the WTO, Pascal Lamy, pointed to two sticking points, trade in agricultural and industrial goods, that remained to be resolved, arguing that "we now have to cross a bridge" if an accord is to be achieved.
Last Thursday's session brought together representatives from 30 countries at the Australian Embassy following an annual meeting in Paris of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
"We all know we have little time but we all know that what remains to be done is achievable and limited compared to what we have already managed to build together through these last seven years of negotiations," Lamy said earlier in the day.
He said some headway had been made in talks on removing barriers to trade in agricultural and industrial products and appealed for a meeting of WTO ministers to draft a framework accord on the two questions.
Failure to reach agreement in the two areas has prevented an overall trade liberalisation deal envisaged in the Doha Development Round of talks, launched under the auspices of the WTO in the Qatari capital in late 2001.
"After innumerable meetings and several revised compromise papers on agriculture and industrial products, the negotiations are reaching a point where ministers could soon meet to agree on what we call the modalities in these two areas," he said.
He called for a gathering in Geneva of senior trade officials from WTO members in the next two weeks to prepare the ground for the ministerial session.
Lamy acknowledged that the industrial component of the talks posed a lingering problem.
Meanwhile, Reuters adds from Rome: A UN summit pledged to cut trade barriers and help poor farmers last Thursday to fight hunger threatening 1.0 billion people, but poverty campaigners said this was not enough to cap high world food prices.
The three-day Rome summit of 183 countries narrowly avoided embarrassing failure when Latin Americans protested at criticism of export curbs in the final declaration, which committed to "eliminating hunger and to securing food for all, today and tomorrow".
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) called the summit to discuss the impact of poor harvests, high fuel costs and rising demand, especially from fast-growing Asian countries, and there was a row over biofuels.
"We firmly resolve to use all means to alleviate the suffering caused by the current crisis, to stimulate food production and to increase investment in agriculture, to address obstacles to food access and to use the planet's resources...," the declaration said.
The Rome debate on the potential benefit to poor farmers of new global trade rules will feed into a push to conclude the Doha round of World Trade Organization talks.
But trade was a sticking point, with food exporter Argentina objecting to criticism in the declaration of export curbs like those it has imposed to shield consumers from food inflation.
US Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer said countries should understand that such restrictions cause food price inflation. Asian rice stockpiling is blamed for high rice prices that have even led to riots.
"We understand that countries want to protect their food supply and make sure that there's enough food for their own citizens but when there's a lock-out from the marketplace ... prices actually go up," Shafer told reporters in Rome.
Delegates said Rome had succeeded at the very least in putting soaring food prices at the top of the global agenda.
Schafer said it had rallied support for "expanded food production ... trade liberalisation and recognises the important role of investments in science and technology in ensuring food security in the long term".
Cuba and allies Venezuela and Argentina objected to the declaration which Cuban delegate Orlando Requeijo Gual said "neglects the vital needs of those who suffer from hunger".
He hit out at the "sinister strategies of using grain for fuel", a reference to biofuels, which critics say divert crops from food to cars.
The United States and Brazil defended using maize and sugar cane respectively to make ethanol to fuel cars, saying it is a minor factor in food price inflation. The declaration referred to both the "challenges and opportunities" of biofuels.
An international producers' group welcomed this, calling biofuels a sustainable solution to food and energy security.
AFP further adds from Rome: A UN summit vowed last Thursday to halve global hunger by 2015 and take "urgent" action over the global food crisis, but only after going into overtime at a fractious summit in Rome.
In a final declaration at the gathering-which saw some 6.5 billion dollars (euro 4.1 bln) pledged, but which exposed strains notably over biofuels-world leaders also agreed to boost food production in poor countries.
"We are convinced that the international community needs to take urgent and coordinated action to combat the negative impacts of soaring prices on the world's most vulnerable countries and populations," it said.
The summit was an "important first step" but not sufficient to tackle the global food crisis, British charity Oxfam said.
Oxfam Chief Executive Barbara Stocking said in a statement that while leaders of the world's richest countries had "acknowledged the importance of aid to agriculture", the global food crisis needed "a wide- ranging plan to resolve it."
"As the world's most powerful countries, they must provide more money to deal with the immediate impact of the current crisis but also tackle some of the contributing causes by ending compulsory biofuels targets and providing more long term aid for agriculture," she said.
"The current crisis illustrates starkly that what we need is not business as usual but deep reform of the international trading system," she said.
The declaration was criticised even before it was formally agreed, with Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini calling it "disappointing."
The text was "unfortunately very watered down with respect to the initial ambitions," he said, cited by the ANSA news agency.
Reaffirming a UN goal despite the current crisis-in which soaring prices have sparked famine and food riots around the world-the summit vowed to cut "by half the number of undernourished people by no later than 2015."
"There is ... an urgent need to help developing countries and countries in transition expand agriculture and food production and to increase investment (from) both public and private sources," the statement added.
The declaration was finalised only after wrangling went down to the wire at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) headquarters in Rome, with biofuels and trade barriers among the most contentious points.
Speaking after the 11th-hour accord, FAO chief Jacques Diouf said some 6.5 billion dollars had been pledged at the summit.
Major pledges came from the Islamic Development Bank (1.5 billion dollars), France (1.5 billion dollars), the World Bank (1.2 billion) and the African Development Bank (1.0 billion), Diouf said.
"Our conference was not a donor conference, but we were pleasantly surprised to receive extremely generous pledges," Diouf said.