Editorial: World's trade negotiations back on track

World trade talks are no place for the faint-hearted. They seem unable to make progress any other way than by going to the brink of collapse before emerging with an 11th-hour agreement.

It would be enough to make anyone blase at another bout of brinkmanship were it not that twice this Doha round of negotiations has gone to the brink - at Seattle and Cancun - and fallen over. Would it be third time lucky at Geneva?

There was no surfeit of confidence to be heard two weeks ago when trade ministers gathered to try to agree on a "framework" for negotiations to proceed. There had been one or two promising noises from the European Union and the United States on the vexed agricultural issues.

But the future of this round, unlike any previously, depended on the attitude of developing nations, many of them new members of the World Trade Organisation. They, more than the prosperous demonstrators in the streets, prevented progress at Seattle and again at Cancun, Mexico, last year.

Their perseverance has paid off. The agreement at Geneva has produced the kind of concessions from rich countries that were on offer at Cancun while asking less of the developing countries than was asked there.

The Doha "development" round, as it was called, has now agreed to negotiate the elimination of subsidised agricultural exports, improve market access for farm products by reducing tariffs and expanding quotas, reduce trade-distorting agricultural supports, improve market access for manufactured goods through reductions in tariff and non-tariff barriers, simplify the "red tape" on cross-border movements of goods and open markets to global services.

That amounts to a fairly comprehensive range of topics on which negotiations can proceed and it means the round is well and truly back on track.

To have achieved this much in a US election year has defied all predictions and it is a credit to the Bush Administration that it has happened. The breakthrough at Geneva comes just as the President's challenger, Senator John Kerry, is campaigning hard against the so-called export of American jobs that can happen when a rich country allows poorer places to use cheap labour for competitive advantage.

Ironically, while the US Democrats fear exposure to Third World manufactures, the likes of Oxfam are criticising the Geneva framework for failing to protect developing countries sufficiently.

In fact, the least developed countries have an exemption from the agreement to cut agricultural tariffs and all developing countries - a category that includes some strong economies these days - are offered a more lenient tariff reduction schedule.

But the real benefit to the agricultural trade of those countries will not be the shelter provided for their uncompetitive produce but rather the better access their farm products stand to gain to rich markets and, most valuable, the prospect of an end to the dumping of the rich world's subsidised food surplus on international markets.

If the agreement to end export subsidies can be brought to fruition, the benefits for efficient exporters will be incalculable. New Zealand is among those which might benefit most.

The framework agreement, of course, is not a guarantee that the round will produce the envisaged result. But it is a firm indication that the powerful economies of Europe and the US expect to make concessions on subjects that remain highly charged in their politics.

A deal may be still two years away and it will probably disappoint in one or two areas of the agreement reached at the weekend. But the WTO has recovered from the stumbles of the past few years and regained the initiative it had been losing to bilateral agreements and regional trading blocs.

The 147 member nations now have a rare opportunity to produce an accord that could spread global prosperity more widely. They should not rest now.