Geneva, Oct 15: World Trade Organisation members will tackle the controversial issue of agriculture first as they attempt to revive deadlocked global trade talks, the head of the negotiations said on Tuesday after WTO states met for the first time since the spectacular collapse of their meeting in Cancun. "In the new phase of negotiations we are starting today, we will begin with agriculture," Carlos Perez Del Castillo, chairman of the WTO's executive general council told the informal meeting.
The 146 member states met in Geneva exactly one month after a key ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico, which was meant to spur on talks on further trade liberalisation but appeared to cement a bitter rift between developing and industralised countries instead. Farm trade was barely discussed in the Mexican resort and the talks broke down over the so-called "Singapore Issues": competition, investment, public procurement and customs procedures.
"Cancun was a missed opportunity and there are lessons to be learnt from it that may have great and lasting implications for the world economy and for the multilateral trading system," Perez Del Castillo told the meeting here. The trade ministers gave their WTO negotiators until mid-December to come up with an agreement to move the talks on the Doha development round forward amid a looming end-2004 deadline for completion of the round. Bureau Report