WTO talks face make-or-break test in mid-July

Geneva, July 6: Global trade talks will face a make-or-break test this month when mediators suggest the outlines of a possible deal in two key areas of the nearly six-year-old negotiations.

Reaction to the draft texts, which diplomats said today would be circulated mid-month in Geneva, will determine whether the WTO's 150 member states can overcome deep divisions and clinch a global accord.

It was not clear whether the chairmen of the WTO's farm and industrial goods negotiating groups would propose definitive figures or offer ranges inside which members may find consensus on sensitive issues including the size of needed cuts to farm subsidies, farm tariffs and industrial goods tariffs.

Crawford Falconer, New Zealand's ambassador to the WTO, chairs the agriculture talks, and Canadian ambassador to the WTO Don Stephenson chairs the negotiations on industrial goods.

''It is our intention that all members be given an opportunity to react initially to these texts before the end of July,'' Falconer and Stephenson said in a joint statement.

''We will suspend our meetings at that point so that members should then have the entire month of August to reflect fully on the draft texts, and that they are in a position to return to the Geneva process fully prepared to engage in an intensive negotiation as from 3rd September,'' they said.

They added that they planned to revise the texts at least once in response to feedback.

The Doha round of talks was launched in Qatar in November 2001 with the aim of boosting global commercial flows and helping producers in developing countries trade their way out of poverty.

The negotiations have struggled to overcome concerns about opening up sensitive markets to more competition.

Hopes for a Doha agreement suffered a blow last month when a meeting between the European Union, the United States, India and Brazil collapsed in acrimony.

So long as countries accept the mid-July texts as the basis for a possible deal, diplomats say trade ministers could be called to Geneva this autumn for another push to seal the deal.

However, if major powers reject them outright, most say the Doha round would be put on hold for several years, or until countries muster the political will to conclude it.

Reuters>