WTO draft draws fire from poorer states

ROBERT EVANS, Reuters, Geneva

Developing countries voiced disappointment on Monday over an outline plan from World Trade Organization officials aimed at getting new global trade liberalization talks launched later this year.

And although major powers welcomed the plan, diplomats said that behind the scenes there was little doubt about concern in Brussels and Washington that it would require them to make politically difficult decisions.

"Perhaps if no one is happy but we're all still talking, we're on the right path to an eventual consensus," said one senior ambassador.

The eight-page draft of a declaration to be issued by ministers from the WTO's currently 142 member countries at the end of a meeting set for Qatar from Nov. 9-13 was circulated to delegations to the body in Geneva last week.

With it was a longer outline of how long-standing complaints from the poorer countries over access for their goods to Western markets and what they see as the excessive speed with which they are expected to implement earlier WTO accords could be tackled.

The two documents were drawn up by the current chairman of the WTO's ruling General Council, Hong Kong's ambassador Stuart Harbinson, after months of discussion with envoys in Geneva.

Endorsed by WTO Director General Mike Moore, they are intended to help clear the way for agreement in Qatar on kicking off a fresh round of free trade talks to build on earlier agreements over the past 50 years on opening world markets.

Supporters of a new round are keen to avoid a repetition of the December 1999 debacle in Seattle when an earlier effort to get a round started collapsed in acrimony among big powers and between rich and poorer nations.

They also argue that agreement would boost confidence that nations were ready to cooperate in tackling global economic problems, especially amid world political uncertainty after the death-dealing Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

Monday's General Council meeting, due to continue through much of the week, offered the first opportunity for delegations to the WTO to offer their reactions to the Harbinson ideas.

Envoys from India, Malaysia, Zimbabwe and Honduras -- speaking for many other countries in their regions -- said the drafts did not go far enough in meeting their concerns.

"We are frankly disappointed," one key Asian envoy told reporters. "Nobody's rejecting the drafts but we definitely have a lot of work ahead to create acceptable language."

And ambassador Srinavasan Narayanan of India, part of a core group of developing countries that has set down tough terms for agreeing to a round, told the Council that his country could not take a positive view of the two documents.

Officials of the European Union and the United States declared it was a basis for discussion, but behind the scenes left little doubt that some aspects were not to their taste.

U.S. officials are worried over provisions for a review of anti-dumping procedures -- a key weapon of big U.S. firms, backed by labor unions, against low-priced products from abroad -- in a new round.

And if the drafts do provide the basis for agreement on a round, the EU would have to drop insistence on the agenda for a round including talks on linking trade and environmental issues, and on WTO rules on investment and competition policies.

It would also have to face strong pressure to cut subsidies to its farmers. Canada's ambassador Sergio Marchi told reporters the 18-nation Cairns Group of farm produce-exporting nations "is absolutely determined to get serious agricultural reform."