Brussels, 28/01/2011 (Agence Europe) - Ahead of the meeting of the trade ministers of the seven principal powers at the WTO on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum of Davos on Friday evening, Karel De Gucht stepped up the pressure placed by the United States on the large emerging nations to obtain new concessions in the framework of the Doha negotiations. For his part, Pascal Lamy is hoping that talks will speed up, so that the Round can be concluded by the end of the year.
Before the meeting to be held in the evening of 28 January of the trade ministers of the seven principal WTO players, Australia, Brazil, China, the United States, India, Japan and the EU, Karel De Gucht called on the emerging economies, particularly China, to tone down their requests. Like the US, the EU will seek to obtain more concessions from the main emerging economies in the coming negotiations, the European trade commissioner, the host of the Davos meeting, told an interview with the Dow Jones agency on Friday.
“Yes the world has changed and it will probably continue to change in the same direction. China is not the same China as 10 years ago. I believe and I trust that they (China) are progressively integrating this into their negotiating proposals. We will need that. If not, we cannot get a deal”, he stressed. Amongst other things, De Gucht laid emphasis on the issue of the subsidies granted by Beijing to Chinese export industries, in the form of tax breaks, state-guaranteed loans and cheap credit provided by the public national banks, a major source of concern for Western businesses. “This is one of the points that we are going to make very strongly, that we need rules for subsidisation”, the commissioner stressed, adding that a definitive agreement would have to include clearer limits on these subsidies.
For his part, the director-general of the WTO, Pacal Lamy, who was not due to attend the meeting of the seven on Friday evening but who will be at the meeting to be held as part of the Davos forum and extended to the trade ministers of some 20 other member countries, said that what he hoped for from the discussions to take place in Switzerland this weekend was a movement of “acceleration” of the talks for the months to come. “Steps forward from all those involved are expected. Everyone round the table realises that if you negotiate, it's about give or take. There's nothing bad about a compromise”, said Karel De Gucht. In the view of the Australian minister Darren Emerson, discussions at the WTO headquarters in Geneva in recent months lead one to believe that the compromises needed are now possible. “There seems to be a general acceptance that what is needed to bring Doha to a successful conclusion is for the major countries to bring a bit more to the table”, he said on Friday. Compromise will still, however, be difficult, because the ministers of the largest emerging nations, led by South Africa, Brazil, China and India, took pains on Friday to reassert their reluctance to give any more, having already made major concessions.
Stepping up agricultural talks in Geneva. The president of agricultural negotiations at the WTO, David Walker, on 21 January announced his intention of stepping up the technical negotiations in the first half of February. The New Zealand ambassador wants to produce a revised draft compromise by June on the terms and conditions for the liberalisation of agricultural trade provided for by the Doha Round. (E.H./transl.fl)