Poor countries reach consensus ahead of G90 meet

1.00pm - By NITA BHALLA

GRAND BAIE, Mauritius - Poor countries demanding a greater share of world trade agreed on Sunday that they want to negotiate trade facilitation at forthcoming global talks aimed at breaking the deadlock between rich and poor nations.

However, the trade ministers and experts from African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries meeting ahead of a key G90 meeting refused to compromise on market access and farm subsidies.

"Finally we have got some concrete results in terms of a mandate for negotiations and we now have a clear direction as how to position ourselves ahead of the talks in Geneva at the end of July," Assad Bhuglah, Mauritius' director of trade policy, told Reuters.

The so-called Doha round of trade talks broke down last September in Cancun over developing countries' unhappiness with US and European Union farm subsidies.

Trade facilitation is one of the so-called Singapore issues. But three other issues -- government procurement, competition and investment policy -- remain unacceptable to the ACP.

The 79-member ACP's consensus will influence the G90 meeting on July 12-13, with delegates expecting little change in the overall G90 position. ACP countries comprise the majority of the G90.

G90 countries are expected to meet senior officials from rich nations, including US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick and EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy, in an effort to develop a framework for the deal by July 30.

Failure to meet that deadline could plunge the WTO into a crisis again. The US presidential election and a change of leadership in the European Union's executive rule out further work in 2004, with no guarantee of a quick resumption in 2005.

As the global economy begins to pick up, the US$500 billion ($771.24 billion) trade deal could help underpin recovery.

The 10-month stalemate has persisted because rich nations pour vast sums of money to support their own key industries, notably the farm sector, while championing free trade.

ACP diplomats said their stand on farm subsidies and eliminating tariffs remained unchanged. They added that farm subsidies distort their emerging economies, where many of their people live on less than a dollar a day.

"It's in the interests of the richer nations to cut subsidies and eliminate tariffs," R Kweronda-Ruhemba, Uganda's permanent representative to Geneva, told Reuters. "Cutting subsidies means opening markets for people in developing countries which means putting more money in our people's hands."

"This means our people (are) spending that money on commodities from Western nations such as mobiles, televisions, motorcycles and computers from the developed nations," he added.

The EU announced in May that it was willing to negotiate an end to export subsidies, provided other Western nations such as the United States did the same.

The ACP ministers called on the EU to provide more details and to table its proposals through the World Trade Organisation. However, EU Commissioner Danuta Huebner told a news conference that there was no need to have a comprehensive document at this stage.

"We are not talking about detailed documents, we are talking about framework documents without numbers and details, but that is not the purpose of the July negotiations," Huebner said.

- REUTERS