Blair says scrapping trade barriers a moral duty

LONDON - Developed nations have a "moral responsibility" to reach a deal to cut trade barriers to help alleviate poverty in the world's poorest countries, British Prime Minister Tony Blair says.

Failure to make progress at World Trade Organisation talks in Hong Kong in December could mark the end of WTO attempts to boost the world economy by lowering trade barriers from farm goods to services, he said.

Writing in the Financial Times newspaper at the start of a tour of China and India, Blair said rich nations should set a 2010 deadline to end farm subsidies.

"It is our moral responsibility to help those in poverty by allowing them the means to grow and prosper," Blair wrote in the article, carried on the paper's website (www.ft.com).

"And it is clearly also in our own economic interest."

He said World Trade Organisation ministers meeting in Hong Kong have a "huge responsibility" to take steps to lift people out of poverty.

"Clearly there is an enormous amount at stake in Hong Kong," he wrote. "Failure to make progress could even be fatal for the trade round."

The 148-state WTO had hoped to announce a significant advance in the Doha Round of free trade negotiations in July, but member states were divided.

Blair said the WTO had not done enough to give African states access to global markets.

"There are many obstacles to overcome -- high tariffs, quotas, subsidies and weak capacity," he wrote.

Blair flew to Beijing on Sunday to reach deals on trade, investment and climate change at a European Union-China summit.

Britain holds the six-month rotating EU presidency and Blair travels on to New Delhi on Tuesday for an EU-India summit.

On climate change, Blair said he hoped countries would look at new ways to cut greenhouse gases at a climate change conference in Montreal in December in the wake of the refusal by the United States to back the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

Kyoto demands cuts in greenhouse emissions by 5.2 per cent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. The United States says Kyoto would hurt its economy and is flawed because it omits rapidly industrialising emerging economies, such as India and China.

"My hope is that the political divisions over Kyoto are receding and that there will now be political and practical action, helping to lay the groundwork for a global agreement beyond 2012," Blair wrote.

He called for more talks with India, China and other developing nations over their role in cutting pollution.

- REUTERS