MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

G.20 prepare for the WTO Geneva talks

Foreign ministers from the Group of 20 or G-20, a main player in the agricultural subsidies battle are gathered in Brasilia preparing for the next World Trade Organization confrontation in Geneva the coming week, following the collapse of the Cancun talks.

G-20 is an ad-hoc alliance of developing countries, speared by Brazil and India, contrary to farm subsidies that first emerged during the WTO ministerial meeting in Cancun with the United States and some European Union countries blaming it for the frustrating results.

The importance of the Brasilia meeting was underlined by WTO Director General Supachai Panitchpakdi who participated in the talks as a special guest and by the scheduled visit of EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy this Friday.

"The clear objective of the meeting is to underline the G-20 interest in achieving progress in agriculture negotiations," said Clodoaldo Hugueney, Brazilian Foreign Ministry Undersecretary for Foreign Trade.

In response to US and EU claims, G-20 argues that its members are not challenging rich nations but striving to end subsidies and enforce what was agreed in the WTO Doha round, in November 2001, that is liberalize global trade.

Rich nations' annual agricultural subsidies are estimated in $330 billion US dollars, a billion per day, six times foreign assistance to developing countries. "Without a clear signal of when they're going to reduce farm subsidies that distort world trade, it's difficult to move forward (toward what was agreed upon in Doha)," said Mr. Hugueney adding that Brazil is proposing the G-20 lobby for clear "conditions and deadlines" regarding subsidies reduction.

"That process must cover all types of subsidies both direct ones such as in the EU and indirect ones that US awards in the form of aid and soft loans to exporters of agricultural commodities".

The Brasilia meeting should also help to tighten the group's cohesion since it has as many former as current members. Following the failed Cancun talks, lured by the United States "bilateralism" Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala and Peru abandoned G-20.

Although G-20 currently has 19 members, it decided to keep its name. Latinamerica is represented by Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, Paraguay and Venezuela; Asia by China, the Philippines, India, Indonesia, Pakistan and Thailand, while African members are Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.

According to UN and WTO statistics G-20 represents 70% of the world's farmers and generates 21% of global agricultural output.