Brussels, 08/07/2008 (Agence Europe) - The leaders of the G8 (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, United States and Russia), meeting in Toyako on Tuesday 8 July, have undertaken to “resist protectionist pressures against international trade and investment in all its manifestations” and called for the conclusion of “an ambitious, balanced and comprehensive WTO Doha agreement … critical to economic growth and development”. Highlighting their “determination to work as a matter of urgency” ahead of the ministerial meeting to be held in Geneva on 21 July, they called on all WTO members to “make substantial contributions” to establishing the modalities for a trade liberalisation agreement in agriculture and manufactured goods, and to bring about concrete results on services. The previous day, European Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson and his Indian counterpart Kamal Nath, meeting in London, re-stated the commitment of the EU and of India to the success of the Geneva meeting. “A successful outcome of the Doha Round balanced across the full range of market access issues in agriculture, industrial goods (NAMA) and services is essential to secure growth in trade and boost the global economy. Such an outcome would also further integrate developing countries into the world economy while fully respecting the development objectives of the Round, including sensitivities in agriculture”. Mandelson and Nath also said that they were “determined to ensure in particular that ministerial engagement on services is substantial and leads to strong future offers” and remained committed to “taking forward issues relating to geographical indications and biodiversity”. In a letter recently sent to WTO Director General Pascal Lamy, Nath warned of the dangers of holding a ministerial meeting without first resolving the pending issues on various chapters of the Round. Nath called for greater clarity on special products and the special safeguard mechanism, which allow developing countries to protect their producers at the border in the event of sudden large-scale imports. He also called for progress to be made on tropical products, preference erosion, tariff capping, tariff simplification, green box disciplines and cotton subsidies. He regretted that there were still wide differences on NAMA and called for progress on services, rules and intellectual property. Chairman of the WTO agricultural negotiations committee Crawford Falconer, on Monday 7 July, promised a new version of his compromise text reflecting the latest technical progress made in Geneva. This new text will be issued before the end of the week, probably Wednesday or Thursday. (E.H./transl.rt)