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WTO negotiators mull compromise bid to break talks deadlock
Geneva, Aug 26: WTO countries voiced differences in Geneva late yesterday over the latest compromise plan for freeing up global trade and breaking a deadlock in trade negotiations.
Geneva, Aug 26: WTO countries voiced differences in Geneva late yesterday over the latest compromise plan for freeing up global trade and breaking a deadlock in trade
negotiations.
The 21-page blueprint declaration, which was
circulated late on Sunday, attempts to narrow gaps over cuts in
subsidies and tariffs in areas such as farming, industrial
products and services.
It was drawn up by the chairman of the general council of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Carlos Perez Del Castillo, for ministers to sign at a conference in Cancun, Mexico in two weeks. That meeting is designed to give a boost to the flagging Doha round of trade talks, launched in the Qatari capital in 2001 and aimed at achieving a new global accord by January 1, 2005.
"It does not purport to be agreed in any part at this stage ... In other words, the whole text is in square brackets," Perez Del Castillo, who is also Uruguay's ambassador to the trade body, told delegates.
Behind closed doors at the organisation's lakeside headquarters, WTO Director General Supachai Panitchpakdi urged envoys of the 146 member states to assume their responsibility to make the trade body work. "The world economy is in a difficult state. In just a couple of weeks' time, at Cancun, we will have a chance to make a difference.
Bureau Report
It was drawn up by the chairman of the general council of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Carlos Perez Del Castillo, for ministers to sign at a conference in Cancun, Mexico in two weeks. That meeting is designed to give a boost to the flagging Doha round of trade talks, launched in the Qatari capital in 2001 and aimed at achieving a new global accord by January 1, 2005.
"It does not purport to be agreed in any part at this stage ... In other words, the whole text is in square brackets," Perez Del Castillo, who is also Uruguay's ambassador to the trade body, told delegates.
Behind closed doors at the organisation's lakeside headquarters, WTO Director General Supachai Panitchpakdi urged envoys of the 146 member states to assume their responsibility to make the trade body work. "The world economy is in a difficult state. In just a couple of weeks' time, at Cancun, we will have a chance to make a difference.
Bureau Report