MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

World trade talks boosted by new “negotiating texts”

World Trade Organization Director General Pascal Lamy said on Tuesday that the negotiating documents put forward this week on agriculture and industrial goods trade proved a platform for intensified work in the coming weeks.

The negotiating texts in agriculture and non-agricultural market access, released respectively by Crawford Falconer, chair of the agriculture negotiating group and Don Stephenson, chair of the NAMA negotiating group, are the second revisions of negotiating documents first produced in July 2007. "These revised negotiating texts illustrate clearly where convergence lies among the WTO members and where we have more work to do. Very soon our negotiating process will intensify as members begin to look across these two important sectors, consider other key areas and seek to find the balance that will deliver for us all an ambitious and development oriented round", said Lamy adding that "the documents can provide a springboard to a new and crucial stage. We are getting closer to our end game". The revised texts had been delayed for months as negotiators struggled with a series of highly technical issues, leaving diplomats and officials shaking their heads at yet another missed deadline in the Doha round. "We are prepared to make the tough political choices necessary to conclude an agreement, as others will need to do as well," said Gretchen Hamel, a spokeswoman for the US Trade Representative. "The US is committed to concluding a successful Doha Round this year that achieves new market access for agricultural and industrial products and services in both developed and emerging market economies," Hamel said in a first reaction to the revised proposals. The Doha round has stumbled since its launch in 2001 to boost the world economy and help developing countries grow by tearing down barriers to world trade. But as negotiations picked up, the WTO's 152 members agreed this year to conclude the round by the end of 2008. New Zealand's WTO ambassador Crawford Falconer, who chairs the farm talks, said there were relatively few "hot spots" left in the talks and progress could be made on remaining issues when negotiators meet to review the text on May 26.