Trade powers to meet in Brussels for WTO talks

Brussels, May 9: Four world trade powers will meet in Brussels next week in a new attempt to narrow their differences over a long-delayed global trade deal, a senior European official said.

The top negotiators of the European Union, the United States, India and Brazil known as the G4 group will meet on May 17 and 18 in the Belgian capital, the top trade civil servant at the European Commission, David O'Sullivan, said on Tuesday.

The G4 is set to hold other meetings in the following weeks.

''We will see if it is possible for the G4 to move towards some kind of convergence'' which could then be taken to the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) full 150-country membership, possibly in mid-June, O'Sullivan told a European Parliament committee.

The WTO's Doha round was launched over five years ago in an attempt to settle the world economy after the 2001 attacks on the United States, and as a way of fighting poverty.

But it has missed several deadlines and risks years of further delay without a deal before the end of 2007, given the U.S. presidential election campaign in 2008 and other factors.

O'Sullivan said it was indispensable that WTO members make progress in the negotiations before the summer holidays.

''Intense discussions'' were going on to reconcile the concerns of developing countries, such as India, about opening up their markets in farm goods, with calls from the United States for new export opportunities for its farmers, he said.

Discussions on bringing down tariffs for non-agricultural goods, such as cars or chemicals, were also ''very difficult'' because developing countries were offering no new real market access to European and other exporters, O'Sullivan said.

''I think everyone close to the negotiation can see how we could put together a package that might work for all these interests, but frankly whether we will get it is something we can only test in mid-June in the case of the G4, and in the course of June and July (at the WTO) in Geneva,'' he said.

The EU is also in the process of completing and launching new bilateral and regional free trade negotiations.

O'Sullivan said talks with the Gulf Cooperation Council of countries in the Middle East, launched nearly 20 years ago, were ''a matter of months'' away from a breakthrough.

He said talks with the Association of South East Asian Nations, launched this month, could last two or three years.

Its poorest members Laos and Cambodia might eventually decide not to sign up in order to maintain trade privileges they enjoy with the EU, and Brussels would not sign any deal with Myanmar while the country remained a dictatorship, he said.

Reuters>