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WTO Drafts Proposal for Farm Subsidy Cuts

Posted on: Saturday, 13 September 2003, 06:00 CDT

The World Trade Organization issued a draft resolution Saturday to force member countries to cut farm subsidies, but it didn't go as far as many developing nations have demanded and some called it unacceptable.

All 146 members of the global trade organization were reviewing the proposal, and were scheduled to discuss and amend it through Sunday. The final document - put together by the meeting's chairman, Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez - could have a major impact on the world's farm trade.

Developing countries, led by Brazil, India and China, asked for the elimination of all subsidies for goods being exported, and major cuts in subsidies for domestic farm products. But the proposal appeared to stop short of what they asked.

The document does not set a date for the elimination of export subsidies and offers smaller reductions than the developing countries had demanded of the domestic payments.

"For the credibility of the WTO, the final text can't look like this," said Hegel Goutier, a spokesman for a grouping of African, Caribbean and Pacific nations.

He said rich countries had essentially drafted the document to their liking without granting the demands of poorer countries.

"We will keep fighting to defend our interests," he said.

Four African nations that produce cotton had been asking the WTO to ban cotton subsidies, saying farmers couldn't compete with their counterparts in rich nations despite lower production costs. The draft didn't give them much either.

"It's pretty lousy," said Nicolas Imboden, an adviser to the government of Benin. "They're buying time."

Security was stepped up at the convention center where the meeting was being held.

Guards searched the bags of reporters and nonprofit organizations' members, confiscating anything that seemed to have an anti-WTO slant.

Hundreds of protesters opposed to the WTO gathered at barricades set up near the meeting's site and threatened to storm past police. Nico Verhagen, of the protest group Via Campesina, said protesters wanted to symbolically close down the WTO meeting.

"They have to come out of their bunker," he said.

The document also proposes beginning talks in two new areas: improving cross-border transportation procedures and transparency in the awarding of government contracts. A decision in the two more contentious areas, investment rules and competition policy, would be deferred until later.

Swiss negotiator David Syz said his country, one of those that had been pressing for talks to start on all four issues, could "live with" the compromise, but it wanted to see a fixed date for the future start of negotiations on investment.

Officials were hoping the document would lead to a breakthrough after four days of difficult talks. WTO members have agreed to try to cobble together a global trade treaty by the end of next year, but they have missed several important deadlines and a failure to agree in Cancun could jeopardize negotiations.

If approved unanimously, the document will set out in detail the system by which governments will negotiate a binding treaty by the end of next year. Poor countries said it was a matter of life and death.

"If (rich countries) don't succeed, there will be some consequences for some part of their population," Goutier said. "If we don't succeed, the consequences will be serious for most of our population."

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On the Net:

www.wto.org

www.maketradefair.org

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