|
Vietnam in 'end game' to join world trade body
Breakthrough trade pact eludes London WTO talks
3/13/2006
LONDON, Mar 12 (AFP): Six World Trade Organisation (WTO) powers meeting in London failed to clinch a breakthrough on trade liberalisation Saturday, despite achieving some progress, trade ministers said.
European Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said: "There was no major breakthrough today" but "we made progress in a number of areas."
Mandelson and his counterparts from Australia, Brazil, India, Japan and the United States were wrapping up two days of talks in the British capital.
"We had a good meeting so far, testing both the possibilities and the limitations of these negotiations," Mandelson told a press conference, describing the meeting as "constructive".
The six WTO heavyweights want to find a way to break a deadlock over the stalled Doha round of trade negotiations.
An initiative by the United States and Canada, which provides a numerical simulation of the effect tariff cuts would have on imports and exports in 10 main WTO members was explored for the first time at the meeting.
"We've had a very helpful discussion because we had numbers," said US Trade Representative Rob Portman, referring to the initiative.
Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said member states were not yet ready to move forward collectively, but he appeared upbeat about concluding the round by the end of the year.
International aid agency Oxfam voiced frustration at what it saw as the failure of rich countries to offer any meaningful reform in agriculture at the London talks.
The meeting marked an attempt to narrow differences over the contentious topic of tariffs on agricultural products and industrial goods, ahead of a deadline of April 30 for a settlement of those issues.
Trade officials hope that will allow adequate time to sew together the complex details of a wider-ranging trade deal by the end of 2006.
Consensus between the so-called Group of Six in London would give fresh impetus to the Doha round of WTO negotiations, launched in the Qatari capital in 2001 with the aim of boosting development in the world's poorest nations.
Report from Hanoi says: A US trade mission has voiced optimism Vietnam will join the World Trade Organisation (WTO) this year but said the communist country must continue to tackle red tape, copyright piracy and corruption.
Vietnam, a fast-growing economy of more than 82 million people, is now negotiating joining the WTO and establishing full trade relations with its former wartime enemy the United States, a prerequisite for membership.
|