Geneva, 23/07/2008 (Agence Europe) - The Indian Trade Minister Kamal Nath, who did not arrive in Geneva until the morning of Wednesday 23 July, was the main organiser of the third day of the ministerial meeting of the WTO, which aims to decide on the broad outlines of a multilateral agreement on details for the liberalisation of world trade. Speaking to the press in the afternoon alongside Brazil's Celso Amorim, the leader of the emerging countries of the G-20 said that he was "optimistic" after the offer made the day before by Susan Schwab to reduce American internal support by at least 15 billion dollars (USD) (EUROPE 9708). "The first thing we have to appreciate is that the US is moving. The fact movement has started as a good sign ", he stressed, stating nonetheless that he was hoping for "even greater movement" from all of the developed countries. In its initial proposal, the G-20 called for Washington to reduce its internal support to 12 billion USD a year; the draft agreement of the agricultural mediator of the WTO, Crawford Falconer, called for a reduction of between 13 and 16.4 billion USD. On agriculture, Mr Nath, whose country stands shoulder to shoulder with Indonesia in the "Friends of Special Products" group, the G-33, also reiterated his support to keeping, in a potential agreement, the special safeguard mechanism which would allow the developing countries to protect their products temporarily in the event of a sudden mass increase of imports. On industrial products (NAMA), Mr Nath stressed the importance of the developing countries to "protect their fledgeling, increasingly competitive industries". In this context, he criticised the "anti-concentration" clause called for by the developed countries, which aims to prevent a country from excluding a major concentration of products belonging to the same category, such as vehicles or clothes, from the scope of the liberalisation. On services, Mr Nath promised a "concrete offer", but demanded in return "good offers", particularly on internal rules to prevent obstacles to investment, and on mode 4 of GATS concerning the movement of individuals abroad to provide services in another country. "The signalling conference on services should give indications which are not reversible", he warned. Lastly Mr Nath emphasised the importance of geographical indications for India, which hopes to protect its Basmati rice. On these geographical indications, negotiations are proving tricky for the EU and Switzerland, which have 818 and 23 products with registered designation of origin respectively, as Ms Schwab said on Tuesday that the United States did not intend to get into this negotiation, which "is not part of the mandate".
Speaking through his spokesperson, Keith Rockwell, on Tuesday morning after a seven-hour meeting in the green room, where the ministers meet behind closed doors, Pascal Lamy acknowledged that negotiations had moved to an "intensive stage". The Director-General of the WTO nonetheless called on the member countries to step up their discussions after the "modest progress" made over the last three days. The process is now delayed by one day, as the signalling conference scheduled for Thursday has been put back to Friday.
Lastly, at the end of a meeting of EU trade ministers of which she was the chair, Anne Marie Idrac of France thanked the Commission for its firmness in the green room. Ms Idrac also stressed that the NAMA are now a "subject requiring urgent attention" for the Twenty-Seven. "On agricultural issues, we have nothing more to offer. We hope to see reciprocity on our offensive interests, the NAMA, for which we need low levels on coefficients and flexibility for the emerging countries. And we hope that the 'anti-concentration' clause will be effective and not just empty words", she concluded. (E.H./trans.fl)