MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Moderate optimism in pre-WTO discussions

World Trade ministers meeting in China have moved to more flexible positions on reducing agricultural tariffs, thus making possible advances in long-stalled World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations, according to Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Peter Allgeier.

Following the informal mini-ministerial meeting in Dalian, Allgeier said the United States and the European Union (EU) moved away from their opposite approaches on agricultural tariffs to consider alternatives offered by other countries, notably the G-20, a group of developing countries headed by Brazil with special interest in agriculture.

Allgeier said WTO negotiators would begin working on these alternatives in coming days and through the WTO General Council meeting scheduled for the end of July; negotiations are scheduled to recess in August.

Ministers from 32 of the 148 WTO member countries participating in the meeting in Dalian, China reiterated their goal of having a ministers' meeting in Hong Kong in December that would prepare for successful completion of the negotiations, formally called the Doha Development Agenda, by the end of 2006.

At issue on agricultural tariffs were competing approaches. The United States and others favored what is called a Swiss formula, which would have reduced most the highest tariffs. The EU and others favored a Uruguay Round approach, which would have reduced all tariffs by the same proportion.

The G-20 proposal would divide countries into bands according to level of development, each band assigning an acceptable level of tariffs. Canada and Australia put forward additional ideas, Allgeier said.

"People feel there are enough ideas out there that people can play with that are neither 'Swiss' or 'Uruguay Round,'" Allgeier added, [so] "that that's where we're going to put the focus of our attention ...."

The US representative emphasized that earlier in 2005 ministers probably had been expecting more to be accomplished by July. Nevertheless, he added, he has confidence that the ministers understand the importance of completing the Doha negotiations successfully.

What is important now is getting to the Hong Kong meeting without "an overwhelming number of open issues" Allgeier said. "And so that is why we want to make as much progress as we can in the remaining weeks of July, and then we will come back in September and push very hard the rest of the way".