Fresh hopes seen for relaunch of trade talks

Fresh hopes seen for relaunch of trade talks

P. Parameswaran
Agence France-Presse
Washington

Developing and developed nations have neared consensus on
several contentious trade issues giving fresh hopes for the
relaunch of the Doha Round of global talks, Malaysian's trade
minister said here on Monday.

Rafidah Aziz said after talks with U.S. Trade Representative
Robert Zoellick that the "general agreement" reached among World
Trade Organization (WTO) members was on the so-called "Singapore"
issues.

They comprised trade facilitation, transparency in government
procurement, cross-border investment and competition.

"My discussions with Zoellick did allude to some positive
trends of people moving forward their positions -- meaning from
their hardline positions to one that is more amenable to
compromise," Rafidah said at a business forum in Washington.

Malaysia has been an influential champion of developing
nations and an ardent critic of the West in the political and
trade fronts.

Rafidah said Zoellick "confirmed" during their meeting Monday
that the European Union, for example, "was willing now to just
focus on trade facilitation and no longer" on the other issues --
transparency in government procurement, cross-border investment
and competition.

The EU and Japan had been pushing for all the four issues --
fleshed at a Singapore meeting several years ago -- to be
included in the Doha Round, much to the chagrin of developing
countries which consider the issues as not of immediate priority
for fueling global trade, she said.

She hoped that Japan would follow in the footsteps of EU or
"it is going to be an isolated country."

Asked at the forum whether there was now virtual consensus to
pursue trade facilitation in the Doha Round with the other three
issues relegated to working group discussions, Rafidah said:
"When you talk about virtual consensus, I think so.

"People are so averse to having universal rules on investment
and even government transparency and government procurement and
on competition policy," she added.

"I will say that there is that agreement, not consensus, but
general agreement that trade facilitation can come on board,"
said Rafidah, a trade minister for the last 18 years and regarded
as doyen among her peers.

"For as long as trade facilitation elements that are going to
be negotiated does not cause undue burden to anyone or business,
that should be okay," she added.

In a separate development, EU Agriculture Commissioner Franz
Fischler said on Monday at a meeting of European farm ministers
in Glengariff, Ireland that the commission had proposed scrapping
EU agricultural export subsidies.

The offer was made on condition that key European trading
partners likewise took steps to reduce financial support for
exports.

Zoellick welcomed the move and in turn promised to remove
export credits that act as export subsidies, and to negotiate new
rules to prevent food aid from displacing commercial sales.

Differences over agricultural export subsidies foiled
multilateral efforts to tear down global trade barriers, a goal
adopted with great fanfare by the World Trade Organization at a
ministerial conference in the Qatari capital Doha in November
2001.

The trade negotiations were placed on the back burner after
the failure of a WTO ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico, in
September 2003.

Rafidah said since the Cancun debacle, the "smaller voices"
are beginning to be heard.

"Now they realize that it is no point pushing issues that you
can't have consensus upon."

Rafidah felt there could be some positive developments by
July.

"We are hoping to get something done by July in Geneva where
the (WTO) general council should meet and try to collate all the
various positions and see what areas there is a route towards
consensus," she said.