Cancun, Mexico, Sept 10: United States and European Union were forced to be on the backfoot today as ministers of G-21 developing countries including India, Brazil and China issued a draft ministerial communiqué on agriculture, shortly before the start of the five-day WTO ministerial here. The hard-hitting communiqué by the G-21 countries, including the latest entrant Egypt, much to the discomfort of EU trade commissioner Pascal Lamy and Us trade representative Robert Zoellick, said export subsidies must be eliminated. Economic, political, technical and ethical reasons add up to make their continuation an aberration, it said, adding concurrently, tighter rules shall be established on export credits and food aid.
These forms of circumvention of export subsidies commitments cannot continue to distort export competition, the communiqué issued at a jam-packed joint news conference addressed by trade ministers of India, Brazil, Argentina, China, Egypt and South Africa, said. Bureau Report