World Banks steps in to break WTO deadlock

Washington, July 10 (UNI) Stepping into the WTO controversy, the World Bank has called upon the G8 industrialised nations and the plus five nations, including India, to try and break the deadlock in the Doha round of trade negotiations at the July 15-17 G8 summit and help lift the 1.2 billion people living on less than one dollar a day out of poverty.

Giving specific suggestions, World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz has, in a letter to the G8 and the plus five (India, Brazil, China, Mexico and South Africa), said a pro-development result would yield gains ''for rich and poor alike.'' Pointing out that global trade talks are on the cusp of collapse following the failure of the Geneva round a fortnight ago, he said the leaders of the world's most powerful industrialised and developing countries must break the impasse at the G8 summit to be held at St Petersburg, Russia.

''With time running out, our collective efforts can make the difference,'' he said in a letter sent on Friday to leaders of the Group of Eight rich industrialised nations and five major developing economies.

The meeting of leaders of G8 -- the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Canada and Russia -- comes in the wake of the failure of the G6 Trade Ministers to resolve the differences over farm subsidy and tariff on industrial goods at the Geneva meet.

''We can work to lift millions from poverty, boost developing country income, improve global market access and reduce taxpayer and consumer costs for all, or allow the whole effort to collapse, with harm to everyone,'' Mr Wolfowitz wrote.

''While successfully concluding the Doha round will depend on detailed formulas and a painstaking technical process, there is the opportunity for the leaders gathered in St Petersburg to provide the momentum essential to success.

''Next week, a collective pledge by the US to reduce agricultural subsidies, by the EU to improve market access and the plus five members to limit tariffs on manufactured goods (a pledge that meets WTO Chief Negotiator Pascal Lamy's target) could help seal the deal,'' Mr Wolfowitz said.

The so-called Doha development round started almost five years ago with a mandate of lifting millions of people out of poverty through free trade and enhanced global growth.

Developing nations have been insisting that richer countries must open their agriculture markets to enable them to open their industrial and services markets.

Mr Wolfowitz called on all sides to make further concessions.

''The world's poorest people, the 1.2 billion living on less than one dollar a day, are counting on your good intentions being transformed into decisive action, just as last year when your resolute political leadership launched the historic Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative at the G8's Gleneagles summit held in Scotland in July last year,'' he said.

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