Indonesia hails new WTO trade round talks

Indonesia hails new WTO trade round talks

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government was satisfied with the outcome of the World
Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial meeting in the Qatari
capital of Doha, a minister said on Thursday, citing that some of
Indonesia's demands had been accepted at the meeting.

"It's generally good. Some of our demands were met at the
meeting," Minister of Industry and Trade Rini Soewandi said on
the sidelines of a trade discussion.

For instance, Rini said, Indonesia along with other farm-
product exporting countries grouped in the Australia-led Cairns
Group had succeeded in getting the "phasing out" of farm export
subsidies included in the agenda of the new round of free trade
talks launched at the Doha meeting.

Farm subsidies were one of the main sticking points during the
Doha meeting which pitted the European Union (EU) against the
Cairns Group and the United States.

The Cairns Group and the U.S. first insisted that the
elimination of agricultural export subsidies should be one of the
agendas of the new round of trade talks, but the EU firmly
rejected this proposal.

The Doha meeting finally agreed on the phrase "phasing out
without prejudging the outcome" rather than "elimination".

Ministers at the Doha meeting agreed on Wednesday to launch a
new round of trade talks, called the Doha round, after days of
tough negotiations.

Rini said the Doha agreement would enable agricultural
products from developing countries to compete with those from
developed countries.

Rini did not provide further details of the Doha agreements in
so far as they addressed Indonesia's concerns.