KEY POINTS:
SYDNEY - Trade ministers from around the Pacific rim will make a real effort to get world trade liberalisation talks back on track, Trade Minister Phil Goff said today.
Speaking in Sydney after talks with his 21 Apec colleagues, Mr Goff said there were real fears that unless progress could be made on the World Trade Organisation's Doha round of talks soon, they could be "put on ice" for two years.
The talks on reducing trade barriers have fallen apart due to differences between developed and developing nations, agricultural exporters and those defending their farmers, as well as numerous other obstacles.
The WTO's talks have also been undermined because the United States President George Bush has had his powers to negotiate trade deals limited due to political oppostion.
A failure to make progress soon could result into a halt in talks until Mr Bush's successor takes office at the end of 2008 and gets settled in the job.
Mr Goff said Apec trade ministers believed the obstacles could be overcome and would leave Sydney with not just a strong statement in support of the WTO talks, "but a real comitment to negotiation".
Individual Apec nations had recognised that overall benefits outweighed individual countries' pain.
Mr Goff said there were still large difficulties to overcome but "we won't bury the WTO, before it dies".
Apec has long aspired to build a regional free trade zone, but the differences in the area are similar to those dogging the WTO talks.
Apec has a number of diverse economies spanning 50 per cent of world trade and Mr Goff said they were not much nearer to negotiations on a regional free trade deal.
Instead "practical and incremental moves" to freeing up trade would be revealed at the conclusion of talks.
Mr Goff also met with US trade officials and he still hoped that New Zealand was in line for free trade talks if Mr Bush regained the right to negotiate trade deals.
He also hoped that a trade deal with China could be completed by April next year, but Mr Goff said the two countries were getting to the difficult issues that would come toward the end of any trade talks.
- NZPA
