France, Japan signal tough farm stance at WTO

PARIS, July 11 (Reuters) French President Nicolas Sarkozy told his Agriculture Minister Michel Barnier today to ensure European Union concessions in global trade talks were met by equivalent efforts from other powers.

And in another statement underlining the problems facing the World Trade Organisation's Doha Round, a similar message was delivered in Geneva by Agriculture Minister Norihiko Akagi of Japan, whose farmers also have strong political clout.

''You will ensure that the efforts agreed to by the European Union in the framework of the WTO negotiations are compatible with our objectives on agricultural matters, and compensated for by efforts on a strictly equivalent level by our partners,'' Sarkozy said in a letter to Barnier.

''No-one should have to doubt our determination to support our agriculture and fishery,'' Sarkozy said.

Talks between the United States, the European Union, India and Brazil to try to shape a formula to rescue the troubled round collapsed last month over the size of needed tariff and subsidy cuts, particularly in farming.

France insists it will not permit the round to undermine its agricultural sector and has warned the European Commission, which negotiates on behalf of the 27-nation bloc, against making further farming concessions in the WTO talks.

BALANCE Japan's Akagi, speaking to journalists after talks with WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy, also stressed that any new WTO pact needed to strike a balance between the interests of farm produce importers and exporters to be successful.

''It is of utmost importance that we achieve a balance in any agreement that we reach. There must be a balance across all the negotiating sectors,'' he said through an interpreter.

Akagi, who met Lamy at the global trade watchdog's Geneva headquarters, said Japan was ''willing to make the effort'' to wrap up the Doha negotiations, launched in the capital of Qatar in November 2001, by the end of this year.

Japan, with South Korea and Taiwan, has long fought fiercely in WTO negotiations for the right to keep extremely high import tariffs on rice, a staple element of the national diet. It came close to derailing the 1986-93 Uruguay Round over the issue.

The round's proclaimed aim is to boost global commercial flows and help developing-country producers trade their way out of poverty, building on tariff cuts and other accords reached in the previous round, which also created the WTO.

The Doha negotiations have struggled to overcome some countries' reluctance to open up sensitive domestic markets, such as rice, alcohol, clothing and cars, to more competition from outside products.

Akagi, clearly referring to rice, said Japan was unwilling to accept caps on the tariffs it can apply to farm imports, and signalled it would need assurance that it can protect ''a sufficient number'' of its sensitive sectors under a new accord.

Lamy has said if a pact is not clinched soon, it could go on ice for several years. Most negotiators see little chance of an agreement in the run-up to the 2008 US presidential election as the White House's negotiating power wanes.

Reuters SBC VV2318