MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

US rice subsidies: bilateral talks with Uruguay

United States and Uruguay will negotiate bilaterally the “US rice subsidies issue”, in spite of the formal claim presented by Uruguay before the World Trade Organization, WTO, was officially announced Wednesday in Montevideo.

Uruguayan ministers of Agriculture and Industry, Jose Mujica and Jorge Lepra made the announcement after meeting with United States Deputy Commerce Secretary for the Western Hemisphere Walter Bastian.

"We're going to solve the situation with a government to government dialogue", said Mr. Bastian in direct reference to Uruguay's complaint before the WTO that US rice subsidies are making Uruguayan sales ever more difficult.

He added that the subsidies issue "is no mystery; it's a problem we have with the European Union, with Arab countries and with many others. But we're not going to dismantle the system unilaterally. The appropriate place to address the issue is multilateral and that's the WTO".

Uruguayan Agriculture Minister Jose Mujica said that "political will" is needed to overcome the issue, for which there are "a thousand ways to address it", among which he mentioned the fact US could help Uruguay find new markets or even purchase the country's crop.

"The larger the crop, the more problems we'll have; what really matters is that we sit down to talk about it", added Mr. Mujica.

Mr. Bastian recalled that United States has become Uruguay's main trade partner, and when asked about increased trade with Venezuela he replied that, "Uruguay is doing business with several countries, which we encourage and support".

Uruguay produces over a million tons of top quality rice annually but has had growing problems to close deals given the competition from subsidised grains mainly from developed countries.